Monday, January 14, 2008

How Is It That A Halfrican American Can Be Successfully Promoted As “Black?”

How Is It That A Halfrican American Can Be Successfully Promoted As “Black?”

I really like Barack Obama. Although my political leanings are far more Libertarian than Democrat, Sen. Obama has a lot going for him and he is by far the most dynamic of all the current batch of Presidential candidates. He may not be my choice for the Oval Office, but he certainly is the choice of millions of other concerned Americans. God Bless Him if he wins the political Super Bowl.

With that being said, why is Barack being labeled the “Black” candidate? All day long we are besieged by media pundits comparing the two democratic front-runners as a contest between a potential first woman, and a potential first black as President. As far as can be discerned, Hillary is all woman; Bill, any objections? Yet Barack Obama is only half black. He is also half white, or Caucasian, or of European descent, or whichever politically correct moniker “whites” should be labeled. Had Senator Obama had been born with predominately white features, would we even be talking about the race vs. gender race? There might be whispers about his having a black father, but those would be insensitive remarks made in back rooms.

The greatest golfer in history (in my humble opinion) had the courage to stand up and say “he wasn’t actually black.” Later when Tiger Woods was asked by Oprah on her show if it bothered him when he was referred to as an African American, he replied, “It does. Growing up, I came up with this name: I'm a 'Cablinasian.’” Tiger, whose father is half-black, one-quarter American Indian, one-quarter white, and whose Thai mother (actually half-Thai, half-Chinese) does not identify with the “black” label being applied to him, regardless of his features. "I'm just who I am," Woods told Oprah Winfrey, "whoever you see in front of you."

As far as I’m concerned, Barack Obama is who he is. And that should be the mettle on which this wonderful person should be judged, as a candidate, and as a man.

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