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While I think that ruling of a great judge, and Taney was great judge, is very important especially today because the Court -- our side of it, I mean, not the emotional will-of-the-wisps -- tends to a narrow-casted stare-decisis-over-focused Rule of Law method, which Taney would appreciate, and Taney -- in Dred Scott -- shows how terribly wrong it can be, and yet so logical and respectful of precedent.

We need a judge who can be fearless enough to go straight back to the anchorpoint in the calm established harbor of Natural Law, rather than just push the tiller of the keel-less wanderer a little in what may be the right direction.

Still, all that is off current thread topic.

The fifties and early sixties had a different concept of "African". WW II had taken us to North Africa. The creation of Israel was in 1947. Egypt was in turmoil during the fifties, and we almost had a third world war over the Suez Canal circa 1956. Africa meant in that time frame in the US, white arab and berber Northern Africa as much as negro "Dark Africa".

The polite word for a black man then was "negro", or perhaps "colored".

I don't think "African" would have been used. I do not think it was anywhere near as common as you would suggest, I think it was rare.

But ... if the grandmother was somehow involved in an effort at the time to clean-up her daughter's record -- that is Obama's birth certificate, perhaps SHE had the clerk enter "African" as an improvement over "Negro".

There's something fishy about Obama's birth record and it may well go back to the time just after he was born.

The birth certificate was filled out in Hawaii. In 1961 Asian-Americans were in the majority. Still are. Their standards prevailed over yours or those of "typical white America" over in the "48".

I am surprised, in fact, that the original record didn't state he was "kurachon". That would, in fact, make more sense than the use of unfamiliar phrases from the "48".

BTW, identifying someone as "black" would be absolutely meaningless in Hawaii ~ particularly in the areas where there are a lot of Polynesians, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Philippinos, or others who work outside in the Sun most of the year.

The birth certificate was filled out in Hawaii. In 1961 Asian-Americans were in the majority. Still are. Their standards prevailed over yours or those of "typical white America" over in the "48".

I am surprised, in fact, that the original record didn't state he was "kurachon". That would, in fact, make more sense than the use of unfamiliar phrases from the "48".