Barack Obama keeps referring to himself as a black man. Indeed he goes out of his way to stress that he is "African American." His parents as well as his friends all called him "Barry" when he was growing up, but Obama insisted on being called by his African given name: Barack. For two decades now he has attended a church which describes itself as authentically"black" and unashamedly "African." If this seems strange when you consider the fact that Obama has one black parent and one white parent, it is.
Obama's racial self-definition is derived from the famous, or infamous, one-drop rule which continues to hold sway in America but nowhere else. In other countries, say the nations of South America or Africa, if you have mixed blood you are considered mixed-race. It would be absurd to call a person who is 50 or even 70 percent white a "black" person. Why then does the United States use this weird rule according to which a single drop (or any visible presence) of blackness makes you automatically "black" and "African American"?
Many people think that the one-drop rule is a product of slavery. Not true. During slavery, the general rule was that slave status passed through the mother. In other words, if a white slave master had sexual relations with a female black slave, the offspring would automatically be considered a slave. By contrast, in the relatively rare case that a black slave produced a child with a free white woman, the offspring would be legally counted as white and therefore free. Obama has a white mother and a black father: in the antebellum South his racial status would pass through his mother.
The one-drop rule was a product of segregation and Jim Crow, not slavery. It developed in the postbellum South as a way to enforce a strict line of demarcation between black and white. Without such a rule an intermediate class of mixed-race mulattoes would make segregation increasingly difficult to enforce. Consequently the Southern ruling class mandated that even a modest trace of African heritage was sufficient to count as "black."
Strangely the one-drop rule has outlived segregation and is today embraced by the very groups the rule was designed to subjugate. Today the NAACP and the Black Caucus live by the one-drop rule, defining as "black" and "African American" anyone who has any discernible evidence of black ancestry. Reading Obama's The Audacity of Hope and his recent speech on race, I see no awareness of these ironies and no attempt to intelligently grapple with them. He is content to maunder about "complexity" and the need to "come together" despite our differences.
The deep question for Obama is not merely "how can America transcend race while continuing to have race-conscious policies?" but also "how can America transcend race as long as the one-drop rule remains intact?" Far from producing answers, Obama shows no recognition that these are even questions that need to be addressed. Meanwhile, Garry Wills in the current New York Review compares Obama's race speech to one of the great speeches of Abraham Lincoln. When I read this on the plane I almost lost my peanuts!
How embarrassing it is to see intellectuals like Wills and sophisticated magazines like the New York Review of Books and the New Republic fawn and grovel over Obama! You can be sure that if a white political candidate mouthed Obama's vague and vacuous nostrums, these liberals would not be issuing such hosannas. In this sense Geraldine Ferraro was right, not so much about Obama as about his white "amen corner." They are giving Obama something he has never asked for as a presidential candidate: intellectual affirmative action.
Reader Comments ( Page 4 of 37)
46. Barrack & Michelle Obama are Black Supremacist. Black Panther approved.
JAMBUTLER at 10:17AM on Apr 14th 2008
47. Brian -
I think you should stop worrying about the thought police. You would actually have to have the ability to think to be a threat to them.
Sara at 10:19AM on Apr 14th 2008
48. The real Obama, in his own words at the private party in San Francisco:
http://savagepolitics.com/
If you have the courage to read it.
JAMBUTLER at 10:20AM on Apr 14th 2008
49. brian: "i hope obama gets the nomination because i think mccain would have an easier time beating him than billary. "
Well this is what i can't figure. Dinesh obviously wants McCain for President, so why attack Obama if he's a weaker choice than Hillary? Why doesn't DD attack Hillary?
AndrewV at 10:23AM on Apr 14th 2008
50. Right. Michelle and Obama, black supremacists and supported by black panthers. If this isn't a typical pee-in-your-pants cowardly remark, just as typical of white racist so afraid black people are going to rise to power and do them what they did to not only black people, but indigenous Americans and just about every other aboriginal soul whose lands and resources they took and whose destinies they destroyed. Fear of karma is a bitch. Well, cowboy, it ain't the black man and woman you gotta worry about. It's fate. Sophocles said it "has terrible power that cannot be stayed by wealth or war." Translation? You can't BUY your way out of it (witness the crashing economy) and you can't BOMB your way out of it(witness what's happening with our strained, broken military) and you can't bully your way out of it. There are forces greater than you that all the attitude in the world won't threaten. Black people are FIRST PEOPLE not "supreme". Black Panthers were the equivalent of the early American "patriot" movement's response to the brutality of British. They formed in response to police brutality in the inner cities. Get it straight fool.
Melaniki at 10:30AM on Apr 14th 2008
51. Racism comes in every color. Doesn't it Dinesh?
TJ at 10:37AM on Apr 14th 2008
52. If you were a Black Panther who would you vote for? Don't be so surprised. Supporters vote for their candidates, not the other way around.
Mokele Mbembe at 10:39AM on Apr 14th 2008
53. Dinesh "By contrast, in the relatively rare case that a black slave produced a child with a free white woman, the offspring would be legally counted as white and therefore free"
Dinesh fails to mention what would happen to the black father in this case. I wonder why? He only wants to stir one side of the race pot. Oh, and he's incredibly intellectually dishonest.
brian; "interesting that DD cannot have his view without being chided by the liberal thought police..."
Dinesh has a blog on an international news website. I think he's doing fine, regardless of what us "liberal though police" write about him.
Ryan Anderson at 10:45AM on Apr 14th 2008
54. Like I said ignoramus, I hope Obama doesn't win. I want you fools to get exactly what you want. Just like did with George Bush. A crashed economy. A dead dollar. Resource and water wars. Food shortages. Destroyed environment so bad the bees have even gone. Poisoned water. Endless war. May all your racist dreams come true. And may Obama lose so he doesn't have to be blamed for them. Black people need to wake up and realize that this is deeper than what it seems. Let it be.
"Justice can span centuries. Retribution does not accommodate a calendar."....Serling
Melaniki at 10:52AM on Apr 14th 2008
55. JAMBUTLER--
Thanks for that interesting link!
Devon at 10:54AM on Apr 14th 2008
56. First of all, DENIECE, is an idiot of the fifth magnitude. Now, a history lesson. There's only ONE RACE. All the rest are ethnicities. Blood has jack shit to do with it. If Deniece takes a blood test, he'll find that his ass is more African than he is any damn thing. A simple MtDNA test and a trace of his ancestry will reveal he's faking, like everyone on the planet. Including the H-Marker crowd who seem to think they came from Mars. You didn't. You came from ONE WOMAN in Africa. This woman's daughters formed two macro haplogroups who left Africa and populated Europe, Asia, The Americas and all points in between. The only thing that made your little asses lighter or darker, and all your other cosmetic changes, WAS THE ENVIRONMENT, food and the constant remixing with those changed by where they lived. Less Sunlight, made you whiter. More sunlight darker. COLOR valuation is a recent phenomenom that was created in 17th century to justify the African Slave Trade mainly. Prior to then, it was class and variety. Not race. Get educated not indoctrinated. This shit is old.
Melaniki at 11:02AM on Apr 14th 2008
57. The main reason that the “one drop rule” exists and persists is because people of European descent, in America relinquished their identity and embraced the term “white”. In Europe, people identified themselves by their national origin; i.e. English, Irish, Polish, Russian, etc. It would never have occurred to them to classify themselves by skin color. Likewise, in Africa people identified themselves by their ethnic group; i.e. Hutu, Yoruba, Masai. White and black was created as power consolidated around skin color; made more advantageous since African slaves had long sense forgotten their origins. The slaves saw that their skin color was the commonality. Proof of my hypothesis is that you never hear Asians refer to themselves as “yellow” people. Hispanic refers to the Spanish origin of countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean. People from those regions identify themselves by country; i.e. Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Argentina, etc. Personally, I think the terms “black” and “white” should be abandoned. They remain because America’s political system depends upon them and the average person is ignorant of history. Obama is conflicted about his ethnic origins; illustrated by hostility to all things European, including his maternal relatives.
janesophie1 at 11:11AM on Apr 14th 2008
58. Hostility to all things European?
Mokele Mbembe at 11:18AM on Apr 14th 2008
59. It's amazing the ignorance that Obama's candidacy has brought to the surface. Of course, we all knew it was there. It's a good thing for us all that he chose to run in the first place. Seperate the men from the boys. Are you going to judge a candidate based on FEAR and IGNORANCE? Are you going to let the media tell you who to vote for? Are you going to follow a political party blindly off a cliff? Or are you going to be a real American and choose for yourself? Are you going to be a real American and support equality of gender,race, and religion? Are you going to be a real American, or an ignorant hateful moron?
If you dislike Obama as a candidate, POST SOME DECENT ARGUEMENTS instead of fearmongering and promoting this utter stupidity that makes us the joke of the world.
Strados at 11:20AM on Apr 14th 2008
60. Why we even CARE, is ludicrous! Our nation is by, of and for the people- it curiously neglects to say WHICH people...Many other countries have elected a variety of people: Pakistan- a WOMAN!? Whoa! An african nation, whose name escapes me- A BLACK WOMAN!? Whoa, Dude! That we even begin to think we, as 'Americans' that we are even remotely superior to much of anything is patently ridiculous! Our divergient theology maintains the divide, and our corporate theology perpetuates it. Enjoy the 'slave class' you are becoming, folks! That's the plan- and IT'S WORKING.
Robert at 11:20AM on Apr 14th 2008