Let me start by saying that I do not have a horse in this race. And I have far more questions than answers. And I am not convinced myself of the validity of some of my tentative answers.
But people have been skirting around this issue for months. Recently two op eds in the Washington Post were printed the same day, with one taking one side and one the other. Yesterday the AP released an article interviewing both black and white citizens, mostly academic, and they held disparite views.
When I saw Obama make the key note speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention I remember telling Sue that he was going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future. The future came faster than I thought, for which I am eternally grateful.
From the time I first knew of Obama, I thought it was strange that he was described as black, and he claimed to be black since he was biracial and I wanted to "claim him" too. Notice the subtle implicit racism in my thought? It was not a problem with him being black, because if he were "totally black" (whatever that means) I would have been just as happy.
But since he is half white why couldn't I claim Obama as one of my own as much as my black friends could claim him as their own? And so I was falling into the same trap we all fall into: dividing people by race. Whites do it, blacks do it. Everybody does it. Everybody does it but few admit it.
Then, when he first announced his candidacy I remember how some black Americans publicly wondered if he were black enough. I believe that two thoughts were behind that questioning: he had a white mother and was raised by white grandparents and by his white mother; and he was not descended from the African American struggle with slavery and its aftermath.
Then people got very upset about Rev. Wright and that could have derailed Obama's candidacy had Obama not given that important speech in Philadelphia on race. Rev. Wright, and I am no supporter of his, was not saying from the pulpit anything that I had not heard from other black preachers of his generation, both in public and in private conversations with black clergy friends of that, my, generation. I knew Rev. Wright in the mid-90s when I had a church near Chicago.
Here are the questions. You please add others.
1. By declaring himself black, and by our accepting that, are we succumbing to the old discredited notion that "one drop of black blood" makes you black? In other words have we given in to describing people by the definition of the slave owning masters in the south? Are we accepting the definition of bigots as the basis of our conversation?
2. But by considering Obama as not black but biracial or post racial are we denying the ligitimate pride that black Americans, and many, many white Americans, including me, feel that the country has, at least for this bright and shining moment, overcome through this man at least part of the legacy of racial hostility in this country?
3. By accepting the definition of Obama as black are we unknowingly continuing the racial divisions of the past?
4. Should whites, like me, see him as black? The truth is that I never have thought of him as any more black than white, and I have struggled with the idea that by calling him black, and him calling himself black, we may have missed a major oppertunity to make a statement in this country that race does not divide us. Have we missed that opportunity?
5. And there is the very practical question of whether or not he could have been elected if he did not say he was black? By African Americans accepting that definition his votes in that important block of voters were almost unanimous. And many white Americans were happy to vote for him as a symbol that America can overcome its false devisions.
So, no firm or dogmatic answers from me here. Just a bunch of questions.
There is a part of me that doesn't care at all. Obama will be my President and I am proud to support him. And I could and would have supported him in any case, not because of his race, but because of his promises and ideals and ideas to make America a place of hope and a light on a hill for others; including his promise to help us move beyond race and gender and other divisive prejudices in our body politic.
I would like to start an intelligent and thoughtful conversation on this if we can have one on an issue that is highly emotional for many, many people. But let us try.
Monte
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