President-elect Barack Obama

Whites call him the first African-American president.

Blacks do too.

Biracial people correct both sides and remind us that his biological mother was a White woman from Kansas. The people who raised him were neither African nor African-American.

Some people are angry that a man half White is going to occupy the White House on January 20, 2009. Interesting, isn't it?

African-Americans fully embrace a man who is only half Black and was raised by a White mother and White grandparents. I tell ya -- this race thing is interesting!

"One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." -- André Gide

Comments

David Hamstra said…
The problem is that, in America, unless you had two white parents, you're something else. Most African-Americans have white ancestors, yet are considered "black". I'm glad that these genetic labels are becoming more and more meaningless, and Obama embodies that.

I think it would be more appropriate to speak of cultural backgrounds. In this system, Obama would represent not an African-American nor European-American culture but a very small cosmopolitan-American culture or understand. But it's easier for us (and for him) to view him, based on his skin tone, as African-American, because that's what we understand.

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