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 6 of 37)
76. reply to: 73
I care about my feelings, Linda.
Monty at 12:57PM on Apr 14th 2008
77. Oh... let me clarify something. I do not believe everyone on the right to be ignorant and I do not attack people who still have faith in a particular god or religion. I don't try to change their belief or insult them as ignorant.
I pointed out commentors on this blog because it seems this blog draws the most ridiculously stupid people. I hate to sound insulting to any of you, but even I can take a step back from my own comments and say... Jeez, Tom, that was the dumbest thing out of your mouth. I rarely see anyone on this blog do such a thing. Instead those ignorant folks rant even crazier and spit and "scream" about how correct they are.
Dinesh is much like that except his "screaming" is a little more subtle. He tries to hide his ignorance behind his degree. This is faux intelligence. Knowledge may = power, but it doesn't equal intelligence. The funny thing is... he is doing exactly what his handlers is doing and it is so... obvious:
How do you attack a person of diverse ethnicity? Accuse him or her of being racist. And they want to call Obama supporters morons?
Tom at 1:59PM on Apr 14th 2008
78. OK,Monty.
Nobody except you.
Linda at 1:11PM on Apr 14th 2008
79. reply to: 77
Linda,
Is that it? "Nobody cares about my feelings?" That's all you've got? Whatever.
Monty at 1:19PM on Apr 14th 2008
80. Monty: Your prognostic powers are suspect.
Linda at 1:20PM on Apr 14th 2008
81. get over it dinesh; whatever it is.
abbot at 1:25PM on Apr 14th 2008
82. Get a GRIP. Obama the "black man" doesn't stand a chance of being elected. Everyone please calm down.
monty at 1:27PM on Apr 14th 2008
83. Linda-
Did the Doctor suck the brains out of your head, then you were born as a result of a failed abortion.
You kinda missed that his first 2 years in school were in a Muslim school on so on and so on. So Linda, if there is any brain matter left in your head, you should be able to figure out that for at least 2 years of his life he was a Muslim. So your statement that Obama was never a Muslim and was raised with no religion is false.
Sheesh, what friggin idiot
robert okane at 1:31PM on Apr 14th 2008
84. We sit here fiddling away while the bush crime
family goe's about it's business destroying the
middle class, while building their " One World
Order ".
Pathetic!!!
BOB JOHNSON at 1:30PM on Apr 14th 2008
85. robert okane,
There was a black kid in my all white school. Does that make him white?
Mokele Mbembe at 1:35PM on Apr 14th 2008
86. Linda said - Not that it would bother me, mind you, but he has never been a Muslim. He was raised with no religion and became a Christian in his 20's.
Actually, Linda, Obama's father was Muslim and even though he split and left Obama and his mother, Obama's mother ultimately married another Muslim man when Obama was pretty young. Obama was raised during his early years in an environment of a practicing Muslim household.
And Obama would have been considered Muslim because his father and step father were Muslims and he was raised in a Muslim household.
And if you talk to a Muslim, they will probably tell you that once a Muslim, always a Muslim, because it's their belief that if you are born Muslim (there's no choice in the matter), you simply cannot convert to any other religion.
So as far as Muslims are concerned, he's still a Muslim, and even though he goes to a Christian church and professes his belief in Christ, that particular church is pretty tight with Farakhan (I know I spelled that wrong).
Perhaps Obama was never a Muslim by "choice". And I wouldn't really care if he was a Muslim then or now.
But it's either naive or intentionally deceptive to act like he hardly had any exposure to the religion in his household or other aspects of his life.
The funny thing is, Obama's Muslim background was a pretty minor issue started with emails making the rounds. But that is not what is getting him in trouble, because most American voters are more intelligent than to choose a president based on their religion.
Obama's problem is that when he doesn't have a prepared speech in his hands, he has a tendency to not be quite so eloquent with his words, and is, in fact, pretty loose with his words and thoughts, and he's left trying to un-explain his "true intent" (which too often sounds like "oops, didn't mean for you to hear that, or I thought it would go over better, so let me see if I can make you believe I meant something else")
laura at 1:37PM on Apr 14th 2008
87. reply to: 79
"Monty: Your prognostic powers are suspect." - Linda
Possibly. I just think it's going to be much tougher against McCain. You've got Obama with 3 years of Senate experience vs. a decorated war veternan, POW, with twenty + years of senate experience and, the most unlikely ally for a republican; the media. I use ally lightly because republicans have no media allies except the WSJ and FOX, but if the NYT and the Washington Post were to support any republican, it would be McCain. They love him for McCain/Feingold and his Ted Kennedy associations.
Monty at 1:38PM on Apr 14th 2008
88. sorry...4 years of senate experience.
Monty at 1:40PM on Apr 14th 2008
89. Obama, or Mrs. Bill Clinton,It doesn't matter they are both COMUNISTS out to destroy this country.
steve england at 1:51PM on Apr 14th 2008
90. Dinesh once again falls back to that tired old tactic of assigning to the opposition the very same flaws that afflict his side of the political spectrum. In reality, people of mixed race have very little control over whether they are considered black or white and the one-drop rule of thumb hardly ever comes into play. I suppose that in his speech Barack Obama in anticipation of all the criticism to come from the right-wing nuts regarding his speech, could have addressed every single aspect of race relations in America and detailed the complexities involved but Had he done so, the right wing would have then accused him of being too conscious about race and labeled him as a single-issue candidate. You just can’t win with people like Dinesh who is nothing more than an insidiously polite and effete dilettante version of Ann Coulter and therefore more recklessly divisive.
Calling on people to try come together despite our differences may be a little hokey, but it’s a good kind of hokey and frankly, I’m not surprised that Dinesh can find fault with that message as I feel that Obama could have given the modern day equivalent of the sermon on the mount and Dinesh would have still found fault with it. Many prominent conservative pundits such as siblings Pat and Bay Buchanan who dislike Obama still rate the speech as a great one and while I don’t particularly care for the Buchanan’s I certainly distinguish them from Rush, Sean and Ann and I wonder how Dinesh feels being lumped in with these three cretins.
Society and the general public at large, not laws or advocacy groups play a large part on how a mixed race individual perceives himself. If one is half-black and half-white but looks black, that person is going to have a different experience than a mixed race individual who looks white.
While I agree that racism in the USA is much less prevalent now than it was forty or thirty years ago, there are still instances where:
• Black people are followed in shops to ensure that they do not shoplift,
• The issue of DWB “driving while black” is still a matter
• On occasion little old ladies still cross the street to avoid black teenagers regardless of whether they are dressed in hip hop, gansta or preppy-nerdy style.
There are many more ways that our society manages to remind black citizens that they are black but I chose these three big cliché’s in particular because I happened to have personally witnessed them. If non-blacks did a little experiment in which they tried to view the world as a black person for just one week, they might just be surprised by what they see.
It was not long ago that there was a question of whether or not Obama was black enough and I’m not surprised that neo-cons like Dinesh would suddenly find a way to characterize him as too black and to outright proclaim that he goes out of his way to present himself as African American. Be careful Dinesh, whiplash can be very debilitating even to the point of distorting perception and impairing judgment.
No one is characterizing Hillary or McCain’s character flaws or missteps as them being too white and I think that Americans at large have to realize that even though blacks, Hispanics, Jews, etc… etc… can be very patriotic and very proud of America, that pride and patriotism is not going to be totally devoid of painful regrets and misgivings about our history. The average American is not going to be aware of the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, Father Coughlin’s radio broadcasts, the sterilization of Puerto Rican women and the internment of Japanese citizens to name just a tiny few of the largely lesser known injustices and indignities experienced by certain citizens and I find it disingenuous that during an election cycle we’re expected to turn a blind eye to injustices of the past and present when in fact this is the right time to look those issues in the face and address them.
As far as reverend Wright is concerned, Obama said he was not in attendance at reverend Wright’s church when he launched into his infamous 12-second tirade but that he had been in attendance when he heard some things he had disagreed with, (he has not clarified what those things were and I see no reason to suppose that they were on the same level as his rant) and I totally buy his excuse that sometimes someone you respect and admire lets you down but you still have to accept them based on the entirety of both their character and your experience with them if they are essentially good but flawed humans. Is there anyone out there who would even question that within the last forty years a bigot or two may have actually been a member of a Republican president’s actual cabinet, the very body that was created to advise the president and help establish policy?.
I myself have experienced just this sort of thing with some friends of mine on a variety of issues, I’ve had white friends whom I have respected and admired who at some point in our relationship have uttered a distasteful remark about one group or another and I’ve had to gauge that statement against my entire experience with them and still conclude that they were basically good people who were perhaps a little too angry on the subject in question or operating from a position of ignorance or a lack of knowledge. I dare say that none of us is in perfect agreement with all of our friend’s views and opinions and have experienced similar situations.
Speaking of Jeremiah Wright, keep in mind that while Dick Cheney was busy using up his deferments to avoid military service and a possible stint in Vietnam, Jeremiah Wright, inspired by JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country” speech gave up his deferments and actively enlisted in the Marines where he served superbly. He then joined the Navy and after excelling in his studies, he was apparently considered patriotic enough to serve on President Johnson’s medical team. These facts hardly ever mentioned in the media that excoriates him as anti American and at this point I’d wager that his 12-second rant has done no damage to our country as opposed to Cheney’s behind the scenes villainy.
That stated, it’s one thing to be part of a church and then somewhere down the line hear something distasteful from the reverend and quite another to know that a particular religious leader is on record making repulsive remarks about a particular group and then actively seeking that person’s endorsement and yet that is what McCain did with John Hagee who has made derisive comments regarding Catholics and the Catholic church. Strangely, the supposedly liberal-biased media has been eerily much less vocal on this issue.
In closing, I would ask Dinesh of he adheres to a “one drop of idiocy rule” and if so, would he care to let us know which one of his parents was the idiot.
rabidmccain at 3:09PM on Apr 14th 2008