News-Record.com

Robert Frost might have been writing about this very topic when he wrote,

"We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows."

Probably not, though the words might apply.

There's a lot of literature on this subject, by Ralph Ellison ("Invisible Man"), Harper Lee ("To Kill A Mockingbird"), Nella Larsen ("Passing"), etc.

What person with half a brain in A.D. 2008 could possibly care one way or the other?

The reason for this nonsensical discussion is that people remained deeply invested in the concept of race despite that race is conceptually nonsensical.

Allen, you're both critical of the one drop rule (since it defines black blood--and for chrissake's, we're talking about BLOOD in the year 2008--as comprising "well, everything else"), and the enforcer of the rule, since to view Obama as "biracial" (when he HAS black blood, which "obviously" trumps white blood according to the norms you grew up with) is tacitly to define him as a "better" kind of black person. Your assumption that he's already "black" (instead of being "really" biracial) depends on black blood, even one drop of it, having magical powers to overwhelm the helpless purity of white blood, however much of it there might be.

Have never understood this African American bit! What wrong with just being American?

Brian:
I wasn't endorsing the one-drop rule. Frankly, I think both arguments are flawed.

This is truly a situation where as Ben Franklin said we must all hang together or we will all hang seperately. It doesn't matter of Obama has two heads and is purple polka-dotted He's the QB, we're down a TD, there's 1:30 left in the 4th quarter, and we gotta go eighty yards.

Kinda makes one curious why someone like Yvonne Johnson would want to do the same with a Mitchstone around her neck.

Doug:
I agree that we're all Americans.
But I don't think recognizing one's roots and being a loyal, patriotic American are mutually exclusive -- especially in the case of African Americans, who were brought here as slaves and forcibly stripped of much of their cultural identity.
Being African American doesn't make you any less American.
Nort does being Italian American or Irish American or Latino American or Arab American.

Allen, if you object to Obama's being called biracial on the grounds that (a) he's first and foremost black, due to his African father, and (b) "biracial" is a tag that indicates an improved black person, you're following the logic of the one-drop rule. You're insisting that his blackness is primary, and that qualifications of it based on his mother are efforts to evade that fact. You're reiterating the norm you grew up with, and that norm did not originate among African Americans.

And what you seem to be objecting to is that whites are making tribalist claims on Obama ("he's partly one of us, not entirely one of them") that conflict with your own tribalist claims ("he's one of us").

To your credit, you come to the right conclusion: all of the above, and I'm not going to lose sleep over it. A better response would be, "whatever." The whole mathematical discourse of race is an effort to fix boundaries that do more harm than good.

Good points, Brian.
I was only referring to the use of the term biracial as a backhanded way of implying its superiority to black people who are not biracial ... that is, implying that at least this president is only half-black.

One of my childhood friends was biracial and at that time (yes, it was a long time ago) she got grief from both whites and blacks . Even as a child I knew, simply from the stares and whispers, that both blacks and whites perceived her as being at the bottom of the pecking order. I clearly remember thinking that her parents must have really loved each other to get married and live day-to-day with those looks of disdain and disgust...and even as a 10-year-old I knew those looks were just the tip of the iceberg. It's a crying shame that so many years later, we still are dealing with these prejudices.

On this Allen, we are agreed. I tire of the manufactured baloney that goes along with this supposed discussion. Who cares. That is the point is it not. Who freakin cares. If you care then you have an issue. I dont care if you are white or black or biracial or whatever.

It doesnt matter. In any way!

I've got a couple of thoughts on this but am too tired to get into the discussion right now. keep the thread alive. I'll be back.

If these people who object to Barack Obama being called "African-American" or "black" saw him walking through downtown Greensboro and didn't know who he was, would they think he was "bi-racial"? Or would they simply think he was "black/African-American"?

While I feel the N&R has an unhealthy obsession with race and racial issues, there's definitely no such thing as being "a little bit black" in our society. It's like being "a little bit pregnant."

If you have any African-American ancestry - and it is evident in your appearance - then society considers you African-American. I can completely understand why Allen would object to term "bi-racial" being used to describe Mr. Obama.

As promised, I'm back. In this day and age the thought of giving people hyphenated monikers seems ludicrous and simplistic. Since only Native Americans are the only true single identifiable group of Americans, the rest of us are either African- Americans, Anglo- Americans, Japanese- Americans, etc... You get the point. I agree with Doug and Allen in that American is enough.

Also, in deference to Jewish readers whose
Jewishness is determined by mother not father, may it then be that Obama is not black, but white.

As others have said, who cares? Barack Hussein Obama is the President- Elect of the U.S.A. I hope he does a good job. I counted on it.

Allen, I think you're not incorrect to identify that spin in some configurations of Obama as biracial. I also think there's a better way of conceiving of him as biracial.

Just saying, are you not reiterating the problem by insisting that, because some people will apply the one-drop rule based on visual appearances, the one-drop rule is therefore definitive of identity? What of "black" people who pass? Are they really white because they're recognized as such? Or are they really black people who are pretending to be white?

Kids get this, I think, in ways that adults don't. The abstraction of race has little to do with how they perceive Jamaal or Brittany in their kindergarten class. But we teach them--insist to them--that race is an essential marker of identity--that it defines "who they are," what their heritage is, what their tribal affliations are. The sooner we rid ourselves of that logic, the better, IMO.

Brian:
I couldn't agree more, especially on your point on how kids see -- or actually don't really see -- race.
We teach them to see racial differences ... we pass our own hangups to them.