The NY Times has this article, Mixed Messenger, that speculates Sen. Obama's cross-racial appeal is due to his being multiracial.
It’s true that, over the past months, Obama has increasingly positioned himself as a black man. That’s understandable: insisting on being seen as biracial might alienate African-American leaders and voters who have questioned his authenticity. White America, too, has a vested interest in seeing him as black it’s certainly a more exciting, more romantic and more concrete prospect than the “first biracial president.” Yet, even as he proves his black cred, it may be the senator’s dual identity, and his struggles to come to terms with it, that explain his crossover appeal and that have helped him to both embrace and transcend race, winning over voters in Birmingham, Iowa, as well as Birmingham, Ala.
The author introduces the term "Hapa," a Hawaiian word meaning "half" that used to be a slur (like queer or nigger/nigga or whatever). And yes, racial assignments can be confused and confusing. But it doesn't go away
Race is thrust on Hapas based on the shades of their skin, the shapes of their eyes, their last names. {P6: Hey, what do you know...it's just like with Black people!]
It just flexes on each of us according to...our race.
When a Centers for Disease Control researcher who called to survey me about my daughter’s vaccinations asked about her race, I answered, Caucasian and Asian. There was a pause, then she asked, “Which would you mainly identify her as?”
Try answering "Caucasian and Black." Or even better, "Black and Caucasian." See, Asian is Honorary White in this country. You get to choose. When it is known part of the mix is Black, you WILL be officially Black, whether or not you are culturally. That's a big difference, and is one of the two reasons I have for not being concerned about Hapas displacing Blacks somehow.
The other reason is, there just aren't that many of them. I know this from all the "should Black men/women marry white women/men" discussions we have...I don't forget much.
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Why are they reading
Why are they reading straight from Shelby Steele's text?
And please stop it with this stuff about Obama trying to enhance his Black "cred." I've seen a lot of White folks say they have "black friends" as a way to insist they not only have credibility but the 'right' sensibility and if they were married to someone Black then there was nothing you could tell them or talk about that they didn't know about Black people.
The media has had a year or more to make Obama into the "bi-racial" candidate but instead of doing that they kept asking the "first black president" question and they had complete control over that, the NYT included.
The confusion comes from the
The confusion comes from the conflating race with heritage. Race is a marker of political status, not ethnic identity. We're talking about castes, not cultures.
I dunno Nquest
If Obama didn't run as the bi-racial candidate, then how could it be thrust upon him. I do agree that they need to stop listening to Shelby Steele is going insane - literally - over Obama's success. And, it's not like Obama came up with his own category, like Tiger. He's denied nothing, accepting all of himself. What the hell is ' Back Cred'? What's Obama doing for ' Black Cred'?
In Shelby Steele's world it
In Shelby Steele's world it is not possible for someone like Barack Obama to be where he is now in terms of the presidential race. For the Shelby Steeles and Debra Dickersons of America, Barack Obama is their worst nightmare.
Shelby is confused. He's angry and confused
Obama makes the opposite choices of him, and is successful. It challenges everything Shelby has written for the past 20 years. And Dickerson? Reading between the lines of things she has written - Sista's got ' issues', and they are of a racial nature.