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Barack Obama: Biracial Icon To "Zebras" And "Oreos" Everywhere?
New York, 10:42 PM
Fri Dec 18
73 posts in the last 24 hours
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Barack Obama: Biracial Icon To "Zebras" And "Oreos" Everywhere? |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/08/08
11/08/08
11/07/08
11/07/08
I am a black 44 yr old transplanted African, married to a black doctor. We have three sons, one(24yrs) medical school student, one (22yrs) investment banker who just got a job in Hong Kong and one(21yrs) in his 3rd year of business, two dogs and I own my own wholesale clothing business.
We are not special or biracial. We also know other black families with the same pedigree.
Its how disciplined you are and how you raise your children.
Obamas' innate character and his family values did an excellent job, instilling in him the discipline that will help him through his life - black, White, Asian whatever.
So quit feeling special - biracial ones and get back to work.
11/07/08
How did it all of a sudden become racist to note that Obama is part white? Just because the racists and other morons have co-opted that message doesn't mean it's not true, and just because it is true doesn't mean that he's not also black. Ohmigod, nuance! Subtlety! Shades of gray! And brown! And beige!
As the lily-white single mother of a biracial son (his pa is black West Indian), I abhor the pigeonholing of race. Yeah, yeah, so Obama would be spread-eagled by the police if he was in the wrong place and wearing baggy pants, and some weedy pencil-pusher in Hartford has decided that you can only check one box for race on your insurance form -- and you're going to buy into that? You're going to let some moron cop force you to define yourself in such simplistic terms?
I think it's fair to ask whether Obama has also bought into the pigeonholing (although he did just call himself a mutt this afternoon!). When I read Dreams of My Father a couple of years ago, I came away thinking, gosh, if I was his mother, I'd call him up and ask, "What am I, chopped fucking liver?" Indeed, Obama himself once said that if he'd known his mother was going to die so soon after, he would have written a different book.
I don't think it's taking anything away from the monumental importance to black people of Obama's election to say that it's ridiculously simplistic to call him simply "black." That may be how society sees him now, but we've got to come up with a more nuanced view of race if we're going to make progress on this issue. In addition, his very diversity makes a whole lot of people -- black, white, biracial, African, Indonesian, Hawaiian, Midwestern, single moms, etc. etc. -- feel connected to Obama in a personal way, and severing those connections only excludes them.
11/07/08
I'm also waiting for the douche who says "I'm not a racist, I voted for Obama." He's gonna be everybody's new black friend. And the people who insist that racism doesn't exist in this country anymore because we have a black president.
11/07/08
11/07/08
11/07/08
On so many levels this comment pissed me off... so is Anna saying that because she didn't descend from slaves she has self esteem? This is the biggest crock of bullshit i have ever read and as an african american with a bi-racial nephew, I have to say that her logic is quite appalling and backwards.
11/07/08
In the same way, I'm not even sure what "white" means - it's used to cover too many races and too many cultures to be relevant. I mean, it obviously doesn't mean simply "light-skinned" since many East Asians are considered to not be white, and I know many Italian-Americans who are fairly tan-skinned, yet are still called white while some Latino-Americans I know aren't. One girl I know is 100% Italian and has skin in the complexion range of most Middle-Easterners; what category does she fall under?
There's just too much ambiguity in these terms for my taste.
11/07/08
Wow. I can't help but think you're looking in the wrong places.
Go to the NBA, NFL, Hip-hop section on iTunes or even the PGA. Lots of models and newscasters also.
11/07/08
so sorry I didn't get to read it until now
11/07/08
I'm not sure whether being mixed works in America, but here the mixed kids I know count themselves as black (apart from this one boy I used to know who considered himself white because he lived with his white mother, didn't see his dad and only had white friends, this changed when he hit 16 and started braiding his hair and smoking weed).
The oreo/bounty issue here has less to do with being mixed and more about 'acting white' (which is why I was insulted pretty much every day at school) and I think that comes in to play in the Obama dialogue. He's well educated, upright, erudite, successful (and all that good stuff) in other words the diametric opposite of all those black man stereotypes. I think that's what confuses a lot of people (black & white alike) rather than his parentage. I mean, if we didn't know that his mother was white could you tell that he wasn't just a light skinned East African? Not a bit of it.
Toby Young needs to hush up though, by his token I'm not black either despite being the child of two African parents because only one of my ancestors was a slave and my great great great grandfather was a German. The people denying Obama's blackness are showing their ignorance and willingness to believe in sterotypes and couching it in pseudo-intellectual nonsense, it's a shame that in 2008 we still need to talk about how black someone is. In fact it's a disgrace.
11/07/08
He is many things to many people but for now he's just Mr. President Obama for me. And oh does that sound wonderful! :D
11/07/08
but a lot of kids who grow up in with one white parent, for whatever reason, don't ever learn the african language, and that's what ends up creating a chasm - i feel especially sensitive about this issue because although i am black african, i grew up in another african country (moved there when i was 5, left when i was 14), and when i got there, understood english, but didn't like speaking it. so the teachers told my parents to cut out speaking seTswana, which is what i spoke - and so my siblings and i only spoke english.
when we moved back home, it was HELL. you look like a typical tswana girl, your name is VERY typically tswana, but you open your mouth, and sound like an alien. i felt VERY outside my culture, and actually clammed up and refused to learn the language for three years because i was so traumatised by people constantly being in my face and asking intrusive questions (much like the biracial kids get, ironically) about 'what are you???' , 'where are you from?? you can't be from HERE!!' and then, because i'm fairly light skinned, and have long hair 'are you coloured??' (mixed race)....
so, if you're an african - or having a child with an african, do the baby a favour - insist that they learn the language from the parent who speaks it - it helps to connect them with their community in a really important way. it's not easy, but it's important. one of the most painful things about it for me was not being able to have a meaningful conversation with my grandmother for about 6 years, and i adored her... but she had no english, and i had minimal seTswana....