Posted on 12/17/2006 9:02:23 AM PST by shrinkermd
The possible presidential candidacy of the biracial senator has sparked an illuminating debate on race.
WE KNOW this: Barack Obama is a rising star. He's a powerful speaker and a gifted writer. He is the only African American serving in the U.S. Senate. But is he black?
That's what New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch asked last month, and his answer was decidedly "no." No, Crouch wasn't just employing the old "blacker than thou" canard. Nor was he concerned with the fact that Obama was raised by his white mother. Rather, he was treating blackness not just as a racial (shared biology) identity but as an ethnic (shared historical experience) one. And isn't that what the switch of terms from "black" to "African American" was all about?
Think back to the late 1980s, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson became the most prominent black to call for the adoption of the term African American. "Just as we were called colored, but were not that," he said, "and then Negro, but not that, to be called black is just as baseless . Every ethnic group in this country has a reference to some land base, some historical cultural base. African Americans have hit that level of maturity." The problem, of course, is that most black Americans are descendants of slaves who had their African cultural heritage brutally stripped from them.
What Crouch is arguing is that what the majority of black Americans share is their ancestors' experience as human chattel, brought to these shores in the grips of chains. Slavery and segregation not only forged a rigid racial line between black and white but created a shared ethnic experience. For Crouch, the fact that Obama's father whom Obama met only once was a black Kenyan...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I don't know; she's not too bad looking, don't you think? Of course, in her chosen profession looks don't matter.
Maybe you need testosterone therapy.
I never understood the obsession with the abundance of melanin in determining ones "Blackness". I sure hope, and wish, the issue had logical value.
Are either of his parents from Africa?
If not, then he is an American.
That was easy.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
His father is from Kenya. His mother is a white American. He is truly American-African, and the inverse of what the racial terms Black American, Negro, and Afro American define.
She's very attractive; no doubt about it. Look at the shape of her body. Not a fan of short hair, but short hair doesn't make her body any less curvy.
Hmmm.... Like Tiger Woods? (you know: the golfer with the Swedish blonde wife)
Not at all, chief. Not only the fact that he was born in America (accidentally or not, I could not say). Having an American parent entitles one to apply for American citizenship.
I agree with your last sentence, but the first part is sarcasm, I hope?
For the record, Halle Berry belongs to the following female 'race' (the only one that matters, actually):
HOT.
UBER-HOT.
"Jelly-knees" HOT.
"Bubbling Brown Sugar HOT."
"Turning their backs on white mothers who raise them to be successful seems to be a common practice among non-blacks who want recognition as black achievers."
The old "which box you gonna check?" syndrome.
Then he is in fact African-American.
See? I said it was easy.
Haven't been to the Optometrist to update the old prescription the last decade, have we?
In that picture we see Berry (as 'Storm') even HOTTER because her hair is LONG (not because its white).
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen<\em>
In that regard, there is no acceptable use of the term "African-American"
Oh, please. In the places where "cultures" are still intact in Africa, the standards of living are deplorable. Where they've become "modernized", it's not much better.
He is equally Kansan-American, it would seem.
Woods has in the past jokingly called himself "Cablinasian" because, if you go to the grandparents generation, he has at least one white grandparent too.
I have NEVER heard him play the race card in any way shape or form. Yes, he complained about the way his father had been treated at 'whites only' golf courses decades ago. That's legit criticism. But asides from that, I can't recall him ever playing the 'card'.He is as purely American and nothing but as anyone can be.
And he says that his wife is even more competitive than he is. (Hard to believe).
Our African-American population is West African, Obama's father is East African. He was raised by his white mother. He has neither ethnic nor cultural kinship with our African-American population.
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