Redefining 'black':Obama spotlights the divide between American Blacks and African immigrants

LA Times Calendar Live ^ | 18 February 2007 | Louis Chude-Sokei

[shrinkermd]

ALTHOUGH NOT quite able to pass for white, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been able to pass for African American. He is biracial, but not white; black, but not African American; American but not African. What has entranced the country more than his somewhat vague policies is Obama's challenge to conventional racial and cultural categories.

Among African Americans, discussions about his racial identity typically vacillate between the ideologically charged options of "black" versus "not black enough" or between "black" and "black, but not like us."

But there is a third side to Obama — and also to the politics of racial passing in America.

The population of African immigrants in the United States is rapidly growing. Since 1990, about 50,000 Africans have come to the United States annually, more than in any of the peak years of the international slave trade, which was abolished in 1807. They add to the steady influx of black immigrants from other continents and the Caribbean, and those who have been in the United States for generations but who don't racially and culturally define themselves as African American...

[X-Ecutioner]

As I predicted on another site, his win will bring black american and african unity.....

[Old Professer]

Character is an ephemeral, vestigal ornament on the tree of history.

Its meaning today is best used to describe actors in a play.

[Old Professer]

Not enough seats at the table.