OK! What's up with the "Part Negro," Half White" crap!!!!

[Fire1]

With increasing frequency, I am finding out something quite curious. So called dems/liberals are finding it necessary to distinguish President Obama from the rest of the African American community. I find this troubling to say the least. Posts confronting this 'idea' or attempts at educating the majority are usually met with silence, which also tells me there is some validity to my suspicions. Many who claim not to be racist apparently feel better deluding themselves but I take it personally. It's insulting to an entire race and culture of people.

[firedupdem]

1. I've been reading that too.....

The last time I asked the poster, "If he robbed your ass how would you describe him to the police?" It's sickening and insulting. He calls himself "African American", how the hell can they decide what he is? It's done to try and show disrespect to African Americans...especially those of us who support him. :grr:

The whole "divide and conquer" crap is still being played.

[Fire1]

2. I think it makes President Obama, somehow, BETTER

than us! That is what's so insulting about it, imo.

[firedupdem]

3. That's exactly what I take from it as well. He's only part "us"....

that's the "part" they have trouble with. Bigots...plain and simple.

[Fire1]

5. Thanks for that confirmation. I didn't think I was

imagining things.

[Number23]

4. I have said a million times and I will say it a million more if necessary

Obama identifies HIMSELF as black.

His MAMA identified him as black. Stanley knew the kind of world she was bringing her son into.

His WIFE identifies him as black. And I'm willing to bet every single person who has ever known him, including his children, sister, teachers etc. identify him as black as well.

As far as I'm concerned, that's enough said. If a white person has a problem with that, tell them to backpack 400 years into the past and take it up with the Pilgrims.

[Fire1]

6. You're right but it's irritating. People will swear up and down

they are not racist and in the next breath distinguish him from the rest of the community to make him more 'acceptable.' It's disgusting to blatantly lie and try to convince members that they're not racist. Ignorance is so transparent.

[Raineyb]

7. It's not new

I noticed it around the time it was becoming obvious that Obama was going to win the nomination. Suddenly you get this half white bullshit. I said at the time, "If Obama were a suspect in a crime he would not be described as half white. But suddenly because he's got a shot at being President, he's half white." It was then and is now as though it's the half white side that makes him palatable to some people.

It pisses me off no one when they pull this shit.

[FrenchieCat]

8. It's a bunch of shit......

Barack Obama and I are 48 and 50 years old respectively. We have been Black all of our lives, period. This "labeling" reminds me of why I have always been so against the Biracial label that became so in vogue about 15 years ago (many parents love it and in fact insist on it!) But I think that it was put out there to divide....as though being Biracial is not the same as being Black.....a way to dilute the census and separate folks, although Biracial folks have been around forever identifying as Black (see Frederick Douglas and W.E.B. DuBois).

Many Blacks have mixed ancestry, so that makes us the same as every other African Americans out there, not in a class by ourselves.

[Fire1]

9. Historically, ALL African Americans are 'biracial.' That is

the part of history they refuse to acknowledge. Many of us may not be able to directly identify our white lineage from our immediate family, nevertheless, it's definitely still there! Had it not been for my grandparents, I would never have known my own lineage which sounds like the United Nations. Many of us are not only biracial but MULTIracial but are still considered African American. Another example is Tiger Woods who calls himself, "Caublasian."

[Kind of Blue]

11. So true. Even from "deepest darkest Africa"

:rofl: :rofl: I've got Asian and Middle Eastern lines in the blood going back as far as 100 years and to the Silk Road.

Back in the early '90s, a white co-worker and I were talking about another co-worker, an A-A girl, how sweet and lovely she is, when all of a sudden he says, Yeah, and I don't see her as black. She was very light skinned but culturally just as A-A as any of us, I mean the girl wasn't even trying to pass nor could she. Long argument ensued and we agreed to disagree.

But he just didn't see her that way UNTIL, being a Christian fundamentalist, she started to disparage homosexuals, which he was and she knew that he was. I wore my hair in braids at the time, and in his defense I said the Bible also says women who wear braids in their hair are sinning, attempting to explain you can't take the book as unadulterated fact because at the time the law(?) was written, the Israelites were under a culture whose women sported braided hair. Of course, she thought THAT law was silly.

Believe me, he saw her as black from then on, and wacko as well. I asked him. But it cracks me up how some define by increments of color how much they like you, and when you're biracial it becomes part and half instead of half and half.

[Fire1]

13. It's not just funny, it's DIVISIVE!! They've been doing this

shit since slavery!! The SAD part is, many of us still fall for this bullshit! The 'color struck' folks in our culture. I DESPISE that shit!!!:grr:

[Kind of Blue]

17. I hate it, too, Fire1. If I don't laugh at the lunacy,

I'd surely be one crying sad sack. To add more to this, my co-worker did not appreciate being seen as not black because he Liked her. Although I didn't like her undercover retaliation, it caused no division between us. Couldn't get her to change her views of homosexuality but we did have fun finding ludicrous Bible rules.

[Number23]

16. Pardon my language, but ain't that some shit

When she was "lovely" to him, he decided that he "didn't see her as black."

But when her homophobic side came out, all of sudden he saw her as black?? Is that what you're saying??

I'd like to say I'm surprised by this, but judging by some of the flat out stupidity and bigotry I've been seeing amongst a few folks for the last few months, I'd be lying through my damn teeth.

[Kind of Blue]

18. That's exactly what I'm saying, Number23.

She was bubbly, beautiful and a hard worker, just a joy to work with. After she turned black, he eventually got her fired. Nothing she did was right and she grew nervous, depressed, scared and did mess up. Shoot, much later he got me fire too :rofl: soon after our Belgium parent company execs came down for a review and decided I needed more in-depth training and sent me to the headquarters there for 2months. It's a long story but suffice it to say it's one of the many reasons I work at home. Funny, after I learned how to deal with people in the workplace, I realized that its a total waste of time dealing with personalities, their wants, needs, fears and dramas on a daily basis.

[Number23]

28. He sounds not only like a racist asshole, but a jealous, racist asshole.

Shoot, much later he got me fire too

At least you got a free trip to Belgium out of it. Hopefully the company reamed his dumb behind and asked why he waited until AFTER you took an expensive learning adventure to Belgium before firing you! :eyes: I have my own stories of clueless whites I've worked with who practically sh*t themselves when I started working with them and did everything in their power from day ONE to get rid of me.

I had one (blonde) woman give me the most glowing performance evaluations but behind my back, was constantly whining to HR about how "belligerent" I was. Now, I'm not going to lie I can be as belligerent as they come when the need arises. :) But the thing that got me was that she was ALLOWED to do all of this behind my back while to my face telling me how spectacular I was. No self-respecting HR person in the world should allow stupidity like that. If you don't have the courage and professionalism to say something to someone's face, then YOU are obviously the one who needs to be removed and not the person you're whining about.

And the thing was, I WAS doing a great job. I almost always do a great job at the jobs I have. But as is the case when you're dealing with insecure, unintelligent people who are easily threatened because someone with more intelligence is working underneath them and they know it won't be long before everyone is wondering how that happened, the better job I did, the MORE it pissed her off and threatened her.

I've learned how NOT to manage from people like her. It's been a painful lesson but a very practical one too.

[Kind of Blue]

29. Oh, my God. Isn't that a trip!

I wish that small company had an HR. I was the only non-white in the company and lots and lots of petty things happened to break the spirit. I don't know if you've read comedian Dave Chapelle's account of what he went through but I understood exactly why he said f--k it all and just left, treating him like a caged animal and expecting him to produce just the same as before. Insanity.

Anyway, it's such a long, long story but their final and most brilliant plan that I refused, was to train someone who everybody knew was my replacement. Poor girl didn't know what to do with herself because there was NO job in this section of the department that I finessed and no one else could do. So I was fired. Oh, they were beyond themselves with glee and tried to block unemployment. Funny thing is the idiots didn't deny that's what they were doing!!! :rofl: And I got it! The unemployment guy said he'd never seen anything like it :rofl: Two years later, the Belgians sold their U.S. branches to a Boston company that shut it down.

Equally funny is I'd run into some of them from time to time and except for one who ran away like she'd seen a ghost, they'd be all friendly like we were long lost friends :rofl: I enjoyed just walking away during the mid smile or just as they were about to speak. On some crazy level, I think they really liked me until they felt threatened. I've never figured that one out except that slavery and it's repercussions has driven everyone in this country, perhaps the world, insane.

[Number23]

30. That's my girl!!

And I got it! The unemployment guy said he'd never seen anything like it

:rofl:

I enjoyed just walking away during the mid smile or just as they were about to speak.

:rofl: :fistbump: :rofl:

[Kind of Blue]

32. Don't you wish sometimes there was a

pamphlet or something that had tips, like the one for driving while black, for working while black or part black? :rofl: :rofl:

[Fire1]

34. Aw right Kind of Blue, don't start that 'part black' shit!!! LOL!!

I hear you girl! Been there done that!! :hi:

[Raineyb]

35. That may be the case exactly.

In my last job, at the risk of sounding immodest, I was the best person they had in the position. Plus I had carved out a niche that no one else could do which is probably why I managed to hang on as long as I did when they were closing down the plant. One evaluation time I got feedback that I made people feel stupid. I never really got a clear explanation as to what it is I did that made them feel stupid. What was I supposed to do pretend to be less intelligent than I am to make them feel better? There is nothing more dangerous than a supervisor who doesn't know shit, won't ever know shit and worse, doesn't want you do know shit and God help you if you know more than they do because apparently if you're black you're supposed to be inferior and behave accordingly.

[Raineyb]

26. There's nothing more annoying than someone who thinks they're paying a complement when they say

"I don't see X as black"

I always turn to them and ask "Really? Are you blind?" then I watch them stammer with their explanation.

:rofl:

You know these people can't stand me.

[Fire1]

27. It is DISGUSTING!!! They can't stand anybody telling

the truth! I'm sure you're losing plenty of sleep over that shit!:sarcasm: :rofl:

[Raineyb]

31. I'm just exhausted from the lack of sleep.

:rofl:

[bliss_eternal]

20. ugh...!

quote:
Back in the early '90s, a white co-worker and I were talking about another co-worker, an A-A girl, how sweet and lovely she is, when all of a sudden he says, Yeah, and I don't see her as black. She was very light skinned but culturally just as A-A as any of us, I mean the girl wasn't even trying to pass nor could she. Long argument ensued and we agreed to disagree.


that makes me so angry!
:grr::mad:

[LooseWilly]

36. I cant help but wonder... you talk about his sudden conversion to thinking she was BLACK...

but I don't hear a word from you about her being a homophobe.

Is your white male gay coworker's sudden conversion of attitude (odious as it is) worse, in your opinion, than the blatant homphobia expressed by your AA girl co worker?

Is he wrong to have seen her as "wacko"? Do you suppose her sudden conversion, in his eyes, might've been a pyschological defense mechanism, to cope with the fact that she "disparaged homosexuals"... by likewise turning to a pre-provided framework for likewise disparaging her?

I'm not trying to judge his opinions, or even hers... just trying to put them in a relativistic context. Sure, I find it illuminating that, when he was fond of her, he didn't find her to be "black", but later he did... it is definitely a sign of... where the hell did you say this all happened??? Nevertheless... once she starts disparaging him as a human being... well, counter disparagements I hardly consider in the same light as those made "out of the blue".

In the interest of full disclosure... I'll admit that I think Christian Fundamentalists are awful human beings... I'm Christian Fundamentalist bigoted... there are some "good ones"... but for the most part, they suck. It sounds like your AA friend sucked. Not that I haven't had racist friends who sucked, but were kind of amusing to hang out with, as long as the racist gag reflex could be controlled... so maybe your homophobic friend was "entertaining" too... like an ex-friend of mine who was an ex-nazi-skinhead. Just dumb, amusing... and maybe a little bit recovering (? My ex nazi-skinhead friend became more ex- and less nazi with every day I hung out with him. He was an awful human being who became less awful as time went on. Can you say the same about your homophobic friend? I'll hope so...)

[Raineyb]

38. I'm not sure I get what you're trying to say.

I didn't get from the post you're referring to that the AA coworker and Kind of Blue were friends at all. I'm sure Kind of Blue will correct me if I'm wrong but the point of the post was not that the fundamentalist coworker wasn't wacko or that what she said wasn't odious, Kind of Blue took the gay coworker's side in the discussion of homosexuality between the gay coworker and the "non black" AA coworker. The point is that many white people rather than respect you as you are will try to "deblack" you if they find you palatable enough and should you cease being palatable to this type of white person, as the "non black" AA coworker became to the gay coworker in this anecdote, then suddenly they see you as black fairly quickly and when you become black you are no longer nice, or sweet, or competent all things you were perceived as when they didn't see you as black. In this disconnect, they show their racism yet will balk if you were to imply that they were bigots.

So to be considered palatable in this country you can't really be black no matter how black you are because to be seen as black is to be less desirable, less competent, less nice, less smart and generally less than deserving of human dignity and treatment.

I'm pretty sure that the gay coworker had heard similar arguments from white Christian Fundamentalists yet somehow I get the impression that as odious as the fundamentalist's views are from anyone of any color the gay coworker found them even more so from this sweet woman who he didn't see as black until those words came out of her mouth.

[jmm]

39. That's how I read the post as well.

I use to have an overly friendly neighbor who would constantly stop to talk. Suddenly it stooped and I didn't know why until we got into an arguement over a guy I dated in college. Apparently he wasn't good enough for me. I pushed her to explain why and she basically admitted she didn't think he was born in this country and he was darker than me. She insisted she wasn't racist for saying I was pretty enough to get a white boyfriend because she liked me. There are many people like her.

[Kind of Blue]

41. Thank you for your example, Jmm. It's spot on. n/t

[Kind of Blue]

40. You are 100 percent correct and thank you for explaining. n/t

[LooseWilly]

47. I did recognize the point...

in the shift from "not black" to "black". My point was that there seemed to be a different standard of heinous/obnoxious for the man's shift from "not black" to "black" perceptions vs. the AA girl's "not black" behavior to "evangelical homophobe".

If it was just a matter of my not reading the storytelling correctly... well then I apologize.

I mistook the details about later discussions of braids being "un-kosher" or whatever... as being a sign that that relationship with the AA homophobe carried on, while the relationship with the "newly black seer" gay man was ended upon seeing that he had "blackified" the Evangelical AA homophobe... which I then mistook as a sign of a different standard of odiousness for homophobia vs. racism.

I was obviously mistaken, so I apologize.

[NOLALady]

14. Good for your grandparents!

Sometimes it's hard to get them to share information.
Genealogy is my hobby. I have yet to meet a Black person who does not have mixed ancestry. I like to tell folks that multiracial is the definition of African American.
African= our African heritage
American= the other folk who added to our genes

[Fire1]

15. Couldn't have said it better if I tried! Haven't seen you on this

site before but glad you're here!! Don't be a stranger!:hi:

[NOLALady]

25. Thanks for the welcome.

I lurk mostly.

DU is a lot different from when I first discovered it sometime after 911. Sometimes I can't stand to go near the other areas.

AAIG is home.

[Brewman_Jax]

21. That is so true

my mother was raised by her grandparents, and just their appearance alone would generate questions; my great-grandmother looked like an American Indian in a documentary, my great-grandfather looked like any other caucasian. My mother said that they wouldn't talk of the past or the family line. It seemed to be torture for them to talk about it. Even when I caught one of them in a weak moment and they would talk, it wouldn't be much. :(

[NOLALady]

24. I know exactly what you mean.

I was raised by biracials, but I had no clue. A cousin told me when I was grown about the white grandfather. I accused her of lying. She told me my Uncle (her Father) told her Mother on his deathbed. I still didn't believe her, although they did appear white and biracial. But, so did everyone else in the neighborhood.
It wasn't until I started researching and found them on the Census living with their German Father and Black Mother that I accepted it as fact.

It was the best kept secret in the family!

From the court records I uncovered, I think I figured out why they made a decision to not discuss their white family. But, their white family was in our lives when I was young. I just didn't know they were family.

[Brewman_Jax]

22. An old report

that I can't find right now estimates that 75-80% of all USA-born black people have at least one white ancestor, while an estimated 15% of all USA-born white people have at least one black ancestor. North American Indian ancestors are very few, since they have been roughly 1% of the total population since the early 1800's and condemned to reservations and remote areas if not made extinct by disease, violence, or assimilation.

[Brewman_Jax]

10. "Other-than-whiteness" has always been disrespected

in the racist caste system. Most white people think it's somehow cute or some (bizarre) sign of respect to acknowledge the not-white part of the lineage, esp. when they say that they're "part Cherokee" (why only Cherokee when there are 337 federally recognized North American Indian tribes and the native Hawaiians, I'll never understand. :eyes: --it's a pet peeve of mine.) like it's adding spice to a recipe, and I find that disrespectful, in addition to being statistically unlikely--unless they can actually prove it. Even if they can, it's still disrespectful because they aren't actually Indian or raised on the reservation, they're white. I've never heard ANY white person (except the white decendants of Sally Hemings on The Oprah Show) ever claim to be part black.

In the racist caste system, you're white, with the rights and privileges thereof, or not-white, with the duties and burdens thereof.

[Fire1]

12. Brewman, you know your shit!! LOL!! It'a pet peeve of mine

also. That 'part cherokee' meme is pure unadulterated bullshit. I've heard white folks say that up here and as far north as the upper peninsula heading toward CANADA!!! Now, you KNOW that's bullshit!:rofl: :rofl:

[kwassa]

19. I think this self-deception by some white voters helped them vote for Obama

By identifying Obama as half-white, whether he identifies himself as such or not, it makes it psychologically easier for white voters to vote for him. It decreases "difference" in their minds, and makes it less traumatic than voting for someone who is COMPLETELY black, whatever that is.

[Fire1]

23. Someone COMPLETELY black would be African. If they

needed some sort of delusion, then they didn't vote for him for the RIGHT reasons in the first place. Your statement is evidence that this nation is STILL not ready for a black president and I'm glad it's coming to light.

[Karenina]

33. Same as it ever was...

;-)

[LooseWilly]

37. I'm curious to hear specifics.

As a fellow "anchor baby" I sure as shit know what it's like to be a "half breed". We're never quite... whatever the "purebloods" are. In my case, I'm never quite white, and I'm never quite... Iranian. In Obama's, I imagine it's the same in many ways. We can be "adopted" into communities... but we never "really" belong. Whenever things get tense, it's inevitable that we'll be viewed as "other"... no matter who we're hanging with at any given time.

At least Obama had an extended white family for some sort of "whiteness" education... and now he's got Michelle's family for "blackness" education. I know some will try to blast me for saying that... but for a half breed, that's how we learn... and if a half breed chooses to "become part of a community", that's how he/she does it. By adoption.

Obama seems to have been more determined than I. He has chosen to adopt himself into the black community. In so choosing, I can't help but see a statement of loyalty on his part... so, as far as I'm concerned, he has chosen to be black.

He is, therefore, in my book, black.

I've, personally, been more fickle. I've been adopted into a Phillipino family, an Israeli family (sort of), a Mexican family (indigenas, in Oaxaca, technically Mixe), and now a white family. And then there's my Iranian family that I communicate with when the government doesn't cut off internet access.

I understand the adoption process of us half breeds... and I think maybe it's a phenomenon that the black community might want to consider... in the case of Obama, try as many might to lay claim to Obama's white heritage... when a half breed "decides" to stake a claim, in the US, on a racial affiliation as Obama has done... that claim is more conscious, and far more difficult to shake, than one that comes as a mere accident of birth... like, say Michael Steele's "ethnicity".

Obama is black. I'm sure he knows about being an outsider though, both from the black, white, and every other community. I'd guess that there are some loyalties laid down... but his perspective is undoubtedly broader than many would like to give him credit for. One of the perks of being a congenital outsider...

[kwassa]

42. Don't presume Obama's life experience is like your own.

despite the similarity of having a foreign-born parent and an American parent, there is little else that I can see in common.

I can tell by your statements about the source of Obama's "blackness" that you haven't read "Dreams of My Father". You might find it quite informative. Actually reading his life story give you a stronger basis for his life story than speculation about it.

You seem to project your own life experience as universal, which is a dangerous thing to do.

[Karenina]

44. My brother does that, especially where my sons are concerned

and it drives me nuts. He lays down HIS roadmap and refuses to recognize that we're in uncharted territory.

[LooseWilly]

48. I'm afraid that I don't have anyone else's life experiences to presume a likenability to.

Even reading Obama's book would merely give me my life experience of reading the book to liken my presumptions of Obama's life experiences to. I'm not sure that this detail of my notions of subjectivity is particularly relevant however.

All I was trying to talk about is precisely that similarity- i.e. having a foreign born parent and an American parent. I was talking about the experience of being "mixed race" (or, as I like to call myself, being a half breed).

I have, indeed, not read "Dreams of My Father". Perhaps Obama has, indeed, constructed a very different narrative for himself in dealing with his mixedness. I was not trying to foist my narrative upon him... merely to point out that those of mixed race are de facto outsiders in the context of race. That said, I was arguing that Obama's choice as to how he self-identified was just that... his choice.

I don't think I was projecting my own life experience in a "universal" fashion... but rather pointing out a small kernel of similarity which provides me with a small kernel of insight... and in the context of that small kernel, I was asserting that Obama's self-identification/choice of whether or not to adopt himself into a community which is willing adopt him is a matter of his own choosing, rather than something which outsiders should feel justified in deciding for him. Myself included.

As far as I'm concerned, Obama is as white or black as he himself chooses to judge himself. If the answer to that question is to be found in his book "Dreams of My Father", then I am perfectly willing to embrace whatever choice he declares therein. The gist of my point is that, as a person of mixed race, there is room for choice in a way that those not of mixed race might not fully comprehend.

[Fire1]

56. If your pigmentation so allows! He can't say he's a white man

when clearly he is NOT! He couldn't pass for white if he tried. Do you have any idea how idiotic that sounds? Apparently, not.:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[LooseWilly]

62. There are black people who choose to identify, as much as possible, with the "white community"

Most black republicans come to mind. You can argue about the relative difficulties, and potential for success... not to mention the undeniable reality that there is a certain threshold of "outsider" that can't be crossed in the "white community" if one's skin pigmentation is too dark.

He may not be able to say he's a white man, but he can choose to embrace the ways of the "white community"... and he could expend effort to become like the community and in the process he could probably find a segment of the community that would "adopt" him. Not all white folks are bad people. Sure, as the circle of the acquaintances grows, the likelihood of some element of "outsider" confronting someone in that position will grow. Sure, some in the "white community" would not be able to fully embrace someone with skin pigmentation... and sure, there will be more resistance in the "white community" to such an "outsider" than there is liable to be in the "black community". It doesn't mean that he couldn't choose to try...

Whether or not it's a good idea, that's the topic of another discussion...

[Fire1]

65. Attempts at acceptance on what level? There may be a few

who are accepted as 'white' only because they can PASS for white. I have never ever known or heard of a black person with brown or even light brown to yellow pigmentation even attempting to be adopted. Even Michael Steele isn't THAT stupid or delusional. Lighter or brown skinned blacks may be more TOLERABLE now days as peers, in the work place and the occasional friendship or in-law situation but there is still skepticism with regards to the intrinsic value of those relationships even among the black people involved. They are never truly themselves and really don't have a hellava lot in common with the white community.

There is NO segment of ANY WHITE COMMUNITY that will 'adopt' a black person who cannot be recognized as anything other than black! How do you know that Pres. Obama was 'accepted' by any other white people besides his immediate family? "Embracing the ways of the white community." Prejudice, racism and bigotry are the "ways of the white community" to a very large extent. OTHER ways that are of far greater significance, such as values, ideology,etc., can be just as easily obtained from the black community. So, WHY, would he or any other black person seek to be adopted or accepted by a community to which he/she does not belong?? That suggestion gets lost in obscurity.

[LooseWilly]

71. Hmm, I think we may be in total agreement, but speaking from different "perspectives"

" Lighter or brown skinned blacks may be more TOLERABLE now days as peers, in the work place and the occasional friendship or in-law situation " ... the "TOLERABLE" that you speak of is what I am referring to when I speak of "acceptance into the community". The "friendship or in-law situation", as opposed to de facto "separateness" is something which I am judging as at least "a form of inclusion" within the "community". My view on the matter is obviously something that can be disputed... and it is a matter of how one defines "inclusion" or "membership" in a "community". As to the "intrinsic value of those relationships"... I agree with you that there is plenty of room to question the "value", and I suppose that question is best answered separately in each specific case. I further agree, mostly, that "They are never truly themselves and really don't have a hellava lot in common with the white community."... though I would say that there are occasional moments when such individuals are able to truly be themselves... and that there are some members of the "white community" which such individuals might find that they do have at least something in common with. Once again, I would say it depends on the individuals involved... though I would say that, on balance, you are entirely correct. I still remember how anxious my white mom got at the thought of introducing her black husband to white folk that she knew. In short order, we stopped associating with white folk.

On the other hand, I think the statement "Prejudice, racism and bigotry are the "ways of the white community" to a very large extent." is a little overarching in its broad brush. To be sure, those are definitely components of the "white community"... and there are layers upon layers of it... and if you dig deep enough you can probably find some form of it in any "white" person... but if you dig deep enough you can pretty much find it in any person. To the extent that it manifests itself tangibly, I would say that there are some segments of the "white community" which are not as "offensive" as that broadbrush implies. Of course, it would take some extreme luck for a black person who chooses to "integrate" him/herself into the "white community" not to come across some aspect of the "prejudice, racism, and bigotry" which you mention.

And certainly, "values, ideology,etc., can be just as easily obtained from the black community". Absolutely.
So, "WHY, would he or any other black person seek to be adopted or accepted by a community to which he/she does not belong??"... well, I suppose anyone who chose to do so would have to answer that for him/herself. I'm not, for a second, suggesting that Obama, or anyone else, should... I'm suggesting that people can, or at least that they can try, if they so choose. I'm not trying to suggest ease, or even success... but I am saying that in this day and age it is at least a vague possibility if anyone, for whatever reason, should choose to try.

[Fire1]

86. This is why your argument fails in response to the OP.

Much of what you're implying is PURELY subjective and only speaks to that RARE and insecure individual suffering from some form of identity crisis, which, as you implied, certainly is not an accurate description or portrayal of Barack Obama. He KNOWS he is African American and has identified himself as such. THAT was my initial point in the OP. I am not referring to some lunatic trying to 'find him/her self.' No matter how hard some try to make him 'half white,' in this country we go by how HE identifies himself and how he APPEARS. You will never hear him say, "I am bi-racial" just as you will never hear any other African American refer to themselves as, multi or bi racial. This is not a difficult concept to grasp. My theory concludes, that the white community is attempting to make this more difficult than it actually is b/c they are the majority who put him in office, therefore, THEY have the right to voice their claim in his heritage. THAT, too, is overarching. Would they STILL be so eager to stake that claim if he was back in the senate and never got past the primaries??? I'll answer that for you! HELL NO! Are they or have they EVER been so eager to stake a claim on ANY OTHER African American in this country? I'll answer that, too! HELL NO!! In fact, MOST in the white community don't even want to TALK ABOUT IT and many that DO are in TOTAL FUCKIN DENIAL!!

[LooseWilly]

97. I think you're right.

I was speculating about the possibilities of an abstract case of an individual who decides to try to self-identify as "white" when said individual was "bi-racial". I was simply stating that, in my opinion, some acknowledgement of the desires of that individual might be in order.

You are absolutely correct that Obama is not that abstract individual. There is no sign he ever was, ever was even similar. He identifies himself as black. He obviously appears black.

He is black.

I never disagreed with that. I merely expressed an even more liberal, perhaps Quixotic, personal judgement that, were he to, for some fantastical reason that only a Soap Opera writer could dream up, to decide to become that abstract individual about whom I was speculating... in that case I personally would be willing to accept that self-identification for him. If he chose it, I am willing to accept it.

Obviously the politics of who the "white community" and the "white power structure", and any other "community" for that matter, try to claim... involves a completely different analysis. I can't find any point of your analysis that I disagree with in any way.

If you thought I was somehow trying to legitimize the efforts of some community to "lay claim" to an individual, in a "racial context"... then I'm sorry to have induced any misunderstanding. As far as I'm concerned, Obama and only Obama has any legitimate say in "how HE identifies himself".

[Fire1]

100. Initially, it did sound as though you were attempting to

legitimize what we consider their stupid and audacious claim. Glad you cleared that up and hopefully, you learned something in the process.

[Fire1]

66. And on this note, "There are black people who choose to identify ,

as much as possible, with the white community," this works BOTH WAYS. There are white people who choose to identify, as much as possible, with the "black community." At least, until the cops show up, THEN, they want to be 'white' again.

[kwassa]

59. Let's talk about your mixed-race and half-breed heritage

You don't have any.

You are Caucasian, on both sides of your family. Half-Iranian and half-American means that you are invisible in America, just another white American, where most whites are mixtures of different Caucasian nationalities. I'm English, Scots, and German. So what? I'm white.

Your mixed identity is clearly important to you on a psychic level, but it isn't externally visible.

Obama, on the other hand, is visibly of African-American heritage. Historically, he can't choose what group to associate with, because he will always be seen as black, as that is the rule in this country. The One-Drop Rule. Another piece of American history for you to read up on.

And that is the bottom line. You are judged on how you look. You are white, and inherit all the privileges that bestows. Even if you were fully Iranian, you would still be white.

[LooseWilly]

63. English, Scots, and German huh?...

So... you are a WASP, deciding that I am white? Is that right? Isn't that the sort of behavior, by "white" critics, that sparked this whole thread?

I guess you get your ideas of ethnicity off of the Affirmative Action bubble choices? Ironically, turns out Iran is technically in West Asia... so I guess I'm Asian, not white.

Vali, merci baraye beh man keh irani hamin keh amrikayi ast ra begoft. Hala man behtar hastam...

Man sefidam...

[kwassa]

68. You are white.

And it has nothing to do with the decision of a WASP. Just look at yourself in the mirror. You are not half-breed anything.

and while I don't pretend to be an expert on Iranians, (who like to call themselves Persian), I have known many, and I don't know one who doesn't look white.

and I used to love going to Shamshiri when I lived in LA, and eating various kebabs, ghormeh sabzi, gheymah bademjan, and drinking doogh, among other treats. I miss the place.

[LooseWilly]

70. Erhhm "You seem to project your own life experience as universal, which is a dangerous thing to do."

I'm sure you are familiar with the words of this "wise" man...

Hmm... "Just look at yourself in the mirror. You are not half-breed anything." I just went and did that, and I saw a freak. I saw someone who looks exactly like the images of Persian nobility on the earthenware in the London Anthropological Museum, but with a dozen self-inflicted earrings.
(And by the way kwassa, "Persian" is the term Iranians use around Americans when they are trying to establish themselves as "different" from those evil Iranians who took American hostages... it is

A) a dodge used in the hopes that "ignorant white folk" won't view us as jihadists... or

B) A means to try to reassure "white folk" that the Iranian in question is one of the "good ones", you know, the ones that were happy to have the Americans propping up a dictator in order to exploit the oil resources without wasting any money on overall national development).

In case you aren't aware... ear piercing, not to mention my tattooing, are bad form for a Muslim. In that sense... I'm pretty much a half breed.

And, explain to me again, how the unsupported assertion of a WASP is not "the decision of a WASP".
I do suspect that Stephen Colbert might get a kick out of a picture of you with an "Iranian Friend" though... ohh, sorry, you still think they prefer to be called "Persian"... despite the fact that the word, in farsi, is "irani".

(In the interest of fairness though, I'll ask my cousin in Iran which she prefers. Just in case there is a difference of opinion between "Tehrangeles", and Tehran. I'll be sure to let you know... so that you can mention it when your telling your "Tehrangelino" friends that they're just as white as you are... Or do you use the term "Indo-Aryan" when you're talking with them?)

(Persian is actually, if I'm not mistaken, taken from a Greek bastardization of 'farsi'... which, incidentally, I'm not capitalizing because there is no capitalization in the Arabic script... 'farsi', rather than leading to 'Farsians' (which would've been kind of cool, I think, as a fan of farse)... became 'Persians'. I'm sure you can do some reading on the subject, if you're ever interested.)

[kwassa]

72. half-breed what? White-with-white?

I notice that you haven't addressed the original issues, which are racial.

a) as you are being the progeny of two different white ethnic groups, you are still white. Let us look at the theory of white privilege, which you haven't examined, of course. Important in your education. Read and learn, though I don't expect you to do that.

http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf

b) the fundamental problem of being born with visible African-American heritage in a country where that is devalued. How is half-breed Iranian comparable? (hint: it isn't).

c)quote:"Just look at yourself in the mirror. You are not half-breed anything." I just went and did that, and I saw a freak. I saw someone who looks exactly like the images of Persian nobility on the earthenware in the London Anthropological Museum, but with a dozen self-inflicted earrings."

Ummm.... how is being Persian nobility freakish? (hint: it isn't). Enviable, but not freakish. I would also point out "self-inflicted" earrings are hardly a basis for discrimination.

A former co-worker of mine had been the official court painter to Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Things changed, however. She was working in retail in America, a common phenomenon in first-generation immigrants.

Get over yourself.

[LooseWilly]

74. White and white?

Hmm... that's not what they say on Stormfront.

Do a google search on "Iranians white or not" and read the first, or second listing. Then tell me how "white" I am...


**Edited to remove the actual link, so that no one accidentally has to look at Stormfront**

[Name removed]

75. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LooseWilly]

77. Sorry... didn't think to question the use of the link.

It's removed.

[kwassa]

76. oh please ....

get a life.

Stormfront has the audience of a couple dozen, at best. Maybe more, but almost zero influence anywhere in this country.

You live in the Bay area, right? There are a huge number of immigrants from all over the world there, like most coastal cities in the US.

Here in the DC area, we commonly have kids from 90 different countries in our schools. Iranian is one of many other immigrant groups.

I am an art teacher. I have art prints up on my walls, including a Persian painting, with script in Farsi, I assume. I have had a great response to the calligraphy from Iranian immigrant students who are excited to see it and to read it.

That is life in modern America.

[LooseWilly]

79. Audience of a couple dozen?...

So you're now saying... there are only a couple of dozen White Supremacist types in the country? Really?

Hmm... the Southern Poverty Law Center disagrees: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/type.jsp?DT=25
They list 111 White Supremacist groups. I would point your attention to the 3 White Supremacist Organizations based in the SF Bay Area.

And, as for "Here in the DC area, we commonly have kids from 90 different countries in our schools. Iranian is one of many other immigrant groups." -- Uhhm, aside from the obvious "axis of evil" issue... are you contending that these White Supremacists view Iranians as "no worse" than "other immigrant groups"?... Like, for instance, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorenos, Nicaraguans, etc.? Gee... I guess that's a great consolation. Thanks a bunch?

I'm fully aware of "life in modern America". It's interesting to see how quickly a WASP art teacher can dismiss White Supremacist attitudes. Ohh, and Stormfront has more like 176000 members, which works out to 14666 and change dozens... Last I knew, 14666 was a little much to call "a couple".

[kwassa]

82. oh, you believe Stormfront propoganda on membership?

That's nice.

[LooseWilly]

84. Is this one of those "points" that you like to refer to, when saying they're not being answered?

"you believe Stormfront propoganda on membership?" ?? That's the entirety of your response? Is this indicative of your extensive "studies"?

Firstly, it is rather surprising that you are so casually dismissing the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Active U.S. Hate Groups in 2008" list. 111 active White Supremacist groups... like they never even existed. Even if these groups had only one single member each, 111 would amount to 9 dozen, and change.

As for the "propoganda on membership", which you assert with no supporting evidence whatsoever... pulling factoids out of your ass and expecting the world to treat them as golden... Wiki would disagree: (I'll leave you to google "Stormfront (website) Wikipedia" for yourself)

In a 2001 USA Today article, journalist Tara McKelvey called Stormfront "the most visited white supremacist site on the net".<15> The number of registered users on the site rose from 5,000 in January 2002 to 52,566 in June 2005,<16> by which year it was the 338th largest Internet forum, received more than 1,500 hits each weekday and ranked in the top one percent of Internet sites in terms of use.<17><18> By June 2008, the site was attracting more than 40,000 unique users each day.<19> Operating the site from its West Palm Beach, Florida headquarters is Black's full-time job, and he is assisted by his son and 40 moderators.<6><19><20> The popularity of the site attracted attention not only from racists, but also from watchdog groups such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), whose efforts against the site have been hitherto ineffective.<21> The ADL describes Stormfront as having "served as a veritable supermarket of online hate, stocking its shelves with many forms of anti-Semitism and racism".<22>

40,000 unique users each day... and 40 moderators... I suppose Wiki's citation of a USA Today article by "Tara McKelvey" is yet more "Stormfront prop{a}ganda" (sorry, the misspelling was just bothering me)?

How about the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/21/AR2008062101471.html?hpid=topnews)?

Obama has worked hard to minimize the issue of race in his presidential campaign. When asked about divisiveness and hate, he talks instead about ways in which unity between blacks and whites has inspired him. He chose to "reject and denounce" an endorsement from Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan. Obama quit his church after his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., spoke of racism and oppression in the "United States of white America."

{snip}

But on a Web site run out of a house in West Palm Beach, Fla., the other side is also fighting.

Don Black spends 16 hours each day on his laptop computer reading hundreds of derogatory Obama comments posted on Stormfront.org, a Web site with the motto "white pride world wide." Black, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, launched the site in 1995 to create a central meeting place for the white power movement. In the wake of Obama's securing enough delegates for the nomination, Stormfront, he says, has begun to fulfill his vision.

A site that drew a few thousand visitors per day in 2002 has expanded into Black's full-time job, attracting more than 40,000 unique users each day who can post on 54 different message boards, he said. Black has enlisted 40 moderators and his 19-year-old son to help run Stormfront.

So, is the Washington Post also a propaganda mill for the likes of Stormfront?

Hmmm, on the one side there's your unsupported opinion, and on the other side there is the SPL Center's Hate Group List, Wiki, the USA Today, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the ADL, and the Washington Post...

I'm gonna have to judge you, kwassa, as the one pushing truthiness^tm for your convenience.

[Karenina]

85. I, for one, have NO INTEREST in discussing Stormfront in this group.

NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

LooseWilly, I do believe you may have a perspective to contribute to this group, however your willy is runnin' a bit too wild and loose. I would offer the suggestion of reading much, listening carefully and asking questions, if you really do want to get to know us, rather than mouthing off and challenging with long-winded diatribes.

Zur Zeit gehst du auf die Eier, Jung.

[LooseWilly]

87. I would be happy enough if there were no Stormfront.

I am not, however, a fan of the notion of pretending that they don't exist while they, in fact, do. Likewise with the White Supremacist groups being monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center... their existence is something to acknowledge and keep in mind.

Or are you tactfully saying that, despite the existence of counter-evidence, I am not supposed to use said counter-evidence to dispute the baseless &/or unfounded assertions made by kwassa at his pleasure?

Si puedes aclarar todo esto para mi, me ayudaria...

[Number23]

89. "your willy is runnin' a bit too wild and loose"

Oh shit!! Can't breathe!! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Somebody help me!! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Lord, I cannot breathe!!!!! :rofl:

[Fire1]

43. Epic fail. n/t

[LooseWilly]

49. As long as it was epic...

I can live with that.

Does this mean that you don't think he is free to choose for himself how he juggles/aligns his ethnic "loyalties"?

[Fire1]

51. He has the right and STILL identifies himself as

African American or Black. What you and others fail to recognize is that President Obama's circumstanaces are no different from any other AA and WERE HE NOT WHO HE IS, society would recognize him as being the SAME AA as the rest of us. MILLIONS of AA are not only Biracial but MULTI-RACIAL. I have the right to identify with FOUR different ethnicities, races and/or cultures. But guess what? In THIS country, I'm considered African American and thus I identify myself as such. ALL African Americans are MUTTS! GET IT? I doubt it.

edit to add: Dr. Gates probably has more 'white' lineage than Pres. Obama, judging by the fact that Gates is of a lighter complexion. Tiger Woods identifies himself as 'Caublasian,' Strom Thurmond has a daughter by a black woman, and the list goes on and on and on and on.

[jmm]

53. Exactly

Like Obama one said, when he's trying to get a cab nobody's saying there's a mixed race man. How he identifies himself can't change that.

[Fire1]

54. Thank you! n/t

[LooseWilly]

67. I'm not about to deny that.

How he's seen by others is not something his self identification is likely to affect. I'll refrain from beginning a dissertation on the perceptions of cab drivers... but I will point out that a black man in a suit is more likely to get a cab than a black man in baggy, low slung pants, with an oversized white t-shirt and a smile of gold.

If we are now going to dismiss all the shades and nuances that influence perceptions... then I am completely wrong. I was trying to speak to the "shades of grey" that make up the spectrum of "reality". A statistical analysis of perceptions of the country as a whole will undoubtedly agree with you... that if you "look black", then people will respond to you as "black". I'm not disagreeing with that.

On the other hand, in as much as the OP is talking about pundits and the like who focus on the President's "whiteness", I think that, if Obama had been of a mind to do so, he could have likewise focused his self-identification on that "whiteness". I will certainly agree that large swaths of the "white community" would never accept him as part of the "community". On the other hand, there are undoubtedly some others who would be happy to accept him into the "community".

The question I have, then, is... would you judge that "limited community acceptance" as sufficient to make him, de facto "white"? Or is the issue at hand not really about which "community" one chooses to "participate in", but rather how one is perceived by strangers/"society"?

Obviously, if you are taking the latter view... then I am completely wrong. What's more, if we are judging "race" by the latter criterion, then I completely agree with you that I am wrong.

[kwassa]

69. He can never be white.

It can't happen. He doesn't have that choice, it doesn't appear on the menu.

It has nothing to do with large swaths of the white community, it has to to with the entire white community. He is not white. He will never be white.

That is how this country rolls, and has rolled for hundreds of years.

[LooseWilly]

73. I like the fact that you ignore the subtleties of my question...

I asked: "The question I have, then, is... would you judge that "limited community acceptance" as sufficient to make him, de facto "white"? Or is the issue at hand not really about which "community" one chooses to "participate in", but rather how one is perceived by strangers/"society"? "

I'm not really fool enough to think that Obama can literally "be white", as you so conveniently & simplistically put it. I'm suggesting the possibilities of defining "race"/"ethnicity" at least in portion based on the community that one "participates in", in as much as that acknowledges the choices that one makes for oneself... versus defining based solely on the perceptions of "others". As the "mixed heritage" population in the country increases, presuming that there is continuing interest in categorizing "race"/"ethnicity", some standard seems to me to be increasingly necessary.

And your answer is a simplistic "It can't happen."

Then again, the fact that you are "whiter" than I am does, I suppose, lend you a certain authority on the specific subject of what the "white community" will or will not accept. In fact, I think you just provided me with yet another brick for the edifice I'm constructing to my "not so whiteness".

Maybe you're right kwassa... maybe the "community" that I'm thinking of was never really "white" after all. My mom was a "bad white person", come to think of it... and I had only occasional contact with my grandfather on the "white" side... and I didn't meet my aunt on the "white" side until after my mom died... and that's all the "white" I was ever really exposed to, aside from what was on the tv.

Thank you kwassa... I think you've solved this whole issue for me once and for all... The "community" that I was speaking of simply wasn't "white" after all. It was a "community" of misanthropes, mongrels, and freaks... so of course they would accept Obama, or anyone else who felt inclined to join in the fun.

Enlightening...

[kwassa]

78. What subtleties?

The issue at hand is indeed how one is perceived by society at large. In America, if you have any perceptible black heritage, you are considered black. That is the perception and law for a couple hundred years.

Part of the problem I have with your missives is that you seem clueless to American history, which is essential if you wish to really understand racial relations here.

to assuage your concern about my WASP-ness, I am married to a African-American woman, and have a black daughter.

and I have studied the subject.

You might try the same.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

[LooseWilly]

80. Again, you do a wonderful job of washing your hands of subtleties.

Meet my stepfather:


And try to guess which of the kids is me.

And I did my fair share of studying on the subject while attending UC Berkeley.

And you're still a WASP.

[kwassa]

81. you should have attended to your studies.

You clearly didn't learn much from your step-father, or anything at UC Berkeley.

Throughout this thread, and previous exchanges with you, you have been unable to respond to most of the points I have made, because you simply don't have the knowledge to do so. Instead, you rely on projection of your individual experience onto the world at large as a valid viewpoint, when in fact it makes little sense without the factual knowledge necessary to support it. Projection is projection, after all.

Imagination is a fantastic thing, but really, some studying would do wonders for you.

Nighty-nite.

[LooseWilly]

83. It would really help if you made a point, rather than just generalizations.

I'm going to guess that you consider this a point " In America, if you have any perceptible black heritage, you are considered black. That is the perception and law for a couple hundred years."

In fact, that is an assertion. It is just you saying something. Tell me, from your vast studies, who says "In America, if you have any perceptible black heritage, you are considered black." What is the "factual knowledge" that you are going to provide to support this point? Or, are you relying on "projection of", well obviously someone else's "individual experience onto the world at large" to support this point? "That is the perception and law for a couple hundred years." Again, another generalized assertion.

And, while I'm at it, "You clearly didn't learn much from your step-father, or anything at UC Berkeley." is... once again, just an assertion.

If you are going to claim education on the subject, please display some sign of it. If your African American wife and black daughter are going to be used to justify unfounded, generalized assertions, then my black step father justifies me simply answering that you are, in fact, the one who is wrong.

The fact is, considerations of "black" have varied, both in law and in popular perception, depending upon place and time. You obviously have found a definition that you like, a variation on the "one drop rule" apparently... and you scoff at the notion of anyone having any say in defining themselves as far as "race" is concerned. You are comfortable with "the binary culture of long years of institutionalized slavery." So be it.

It is rather interesting to see, however, that you have so internalized that "binary culture" that you can casually dismiss the "otherness" of immigrants in US culture, as you did back in post #76. (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=258&topic_id=7259&mesg_id=7524). Your posts, in fact, consistently sound like you posit a binary notion of "black" and "not black"... and somehow treat all "not black" as being de facto "white"... and then proceed to dismiss all "not black" issues to a convenient "irrelevance".

That sounds like a rather interesting twist on "white privilege", when performed by a WASP with a "conflict of interest".

[kwassa]

88. Here is some factual material for you.

The One-Drop Rule, from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule

The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States that holds that a person with any trace of African ancestry is considered black (unless they have an alternative non-white ancestry, such as Native American, Asian, Arab, Polynesian or Australian aboriginal).<1> It developed most strongly out of the binary culture of long years of institutionalized slavery.

This notion of invisible/intangible membership in a racial group has seldom been applied to people of other ancestry (see Race in the United States for details). The concept has been chiefly applied to those of black African ancestry. As Langston Hughes wrote, "You see, unfortunately, I am not black. There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word 'Negro' is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins. In Africa, the word is more pure. It means all Negro, therefore black. I am brown."<2>

.........................................

Despite the one-drop rule being held illegal (ever since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 overturned the Racial Integrity Act of 1924), as recently as 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a decision by the federal Office for Dispute Resolution to refuse to hear a case attacking Louisiana’s racial classification criteria as applied to Susie Phipps (479 U.S. 1002) (In 1985, the fair-complexioned Phipps had checked "White" on her passport application. It was denied because, decades before on her birth certificate, a midwife had checked "colored" for one of her parents. Phipps sued, testifying that "this classification came as a shock, since she had always thought she was White, had lived as White, had had twice married as White." 479 So. 2d 369). In addition, several authors and journalists have found it very profitable to "out" as black famous historical mulattoes and whites, who were regarded as white in their society, who self-identified as such, and who were culturally "European" (whether from Europe, the United States, or elsewhere), merely because they acknowledged having (often slight) African ancestry (Anatole Broyard, James Augustine Healy, Patrick Francis Healy, Michael Healy, Sir Peter Ustinov, Calvin Clark Davis, John James Audubon, Mother Henriette Delille — a Louisiana Creole).

Many scholars publishing on this topic today (including Naomi Zack, Neil Gotanda, Michael L. Blakey, Julie C. Lythcott-Haims, Christine Hickman, David A. Hollinger, Thomas E. Skidmore, G. Reginald Daniel, F. James Davis, Joe R. Feagin, Ian F. Haney-Lopez, Barbara Fields, Dinesh D'Souza, Joel Williamson, Mary C. Waters, Debra J. Dickerson) affirm that the one-drop rule is still strong in American popular culture. Affirmative action court cases, on the other hand, (when an apparently white person claims invisible black ancestry and claims federal entitlements and/or EEOC enforcement) are mixed. In some cases, such as the 1985 Boston firefighters Philip and Paul Malone's case, courts have held that such claimants are guilty of "racial fraud" despite their claim of having a black grandparent.

Here is an excellent book on the subject, as excerpted on PBS's Frontline. I have a copy upstairs.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/mixed/onedrop.html

Who is Black? One Nation's Definition by F. James Davis


F. James Davis is a retired professor of sociology at Illinois State University. He is the author of numerous books, including Who is Black? One Nation's Definition (1991), from which this excerpt was taken.

Reprinted with permission of Penn State University Press
The One-Drop Rule Defined

To be considered black in the United States not even half of one's ancestry must be African black. But will one-fourth do, or one-eighth, or less? The nation's answer to the question 'Who is black?" has long been that a black is any person with any known African black ancestry. This definition reflects the long experience with slavery and later with Jim Crow segregation. In the South it became known as the "one-drop rule,'' meaning that a single drop of "black blood" makes a person a black. It is also known as the "one black ancestor rule," some courts have called it the "traceable amount rule," and anthropologists call it the "hypo-descent rule," meaning that racially mixed persons are assigned the status of the subordinate group. This definition emerged from the American South to become the nation's definition, generally accepted by whites and blacks. Blacks had no other choice. As we shall see, this American cultural definition of blacks is taken for granted as readily by judges, affirmative action officers, and black protesters as it is by Ku Klux Klansmen.

................................

For the physically visible groups other than blacks, miscegenation promotes assimilation, despite barriers of prejudice and discrimination during two or more generations of racial mixing. As noted above, when ancestry in one of these racial minority groups does not exceed one-fourth, a person is not defined solely as a member of that group. Masses of white European immigrants have climbed the class ladder not only through education but also with the help of close personal relationships in the dominant community, intermarriage, and ultimately full cultural and social assimilation. Young people tend to marry people they meet in the same informal social circles. For visibly non-caucasoid minorities other than blacks in the United States, this entire route to full assimilation is slow but possible.

For all persons of any known black lineage, however, assimilation is blocked and is not promoted by miscegenation. Barriers to full opportunity and participation for blacks are still formidable, and a fractionally black person cannot escape these obstacles without passing as white and cutting off all ties to the black family and community. The pain of this separation, and condemnation by the black family and community, are major reasons why many or most of those who could pass as white choose not to. Loss of security within the minority community, and fear and distrust of the white world are also factors.

It should now be apparent that the definition of a black person as one with any trace at all of black African ancestry is inextricably woven into the history of the United States. It incorporates beliefs once used to justify slavery and later used to buttress the castelike Jim Crow system of segregation. Developed in the South, the definition of "Negro" (now black) spread and became the nation's social and legal definition. Because blacks are defined according to the one-drop rule, they are a socially constructed category in which there is wide variation in racial traits and therefore not a race group in the scientific sense. However, because that category has a definite status position in the society it has become a self-conscious social group with an ethnic identity.

Now, you say this in your last post:

"The fact is, considerations of "black" have varied, both in law and in popular perception, depending upon place and time."

This, of course, it not a fact, but your assertion. Two can play this game, can't they?

Time for you to back up YOUR assertion. I will be most interested in your reply.

[LooseWilly]

90. Thank you sir, at long last something for me to examine...

Firstly, I suppose I'll give you some things that I've found that suggest that the "one drop rule", which we both seem to be quoting from the same source, is not nearly as "universal" as your quoted source would have one believe.
Again from Wiki- Oakland

Prior to World War II, blacks constituted about 3% of Oakland's population. Aside from restrictive covenants pertaining to some Oakland hills properties, Jim Crow laws mandating racial segregation did not exist in California, and relations between the races were mostly harmonious. What segregation did exist was voluntary; blacks could, and did, live in all parts of the city. <30>

The war attracted to Oakland large numbers of laborers from around the country, though most were poor whites and blacks from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mississippi—sharecroppers who had been actively recruited by Henry J. Kaiser to work in his shipyards. These immigrants from the Jim Crow South brought their racial attitudes with them, and the racial harmony that Oakland blacks had been accustomed to prior to the war evaporated.<30> Southern whites expected deference from their black co-workers, and initially Southern blacks were conditioned to grant it.<31> As Southern blacks became aware of their more equal standing under California law, they began to reject subservient roles. The new immigrants prospered, though they were affected by rising racial discrimination and informal postwar neighborhood redlining.<31>

Judging by that, and I invite a stroll through Wiki to examine sources, the "one drop rule" as it evolved in the post-reconstruction South didn't make it to California until it was brought by... Southerners. And, even though the "racial attitudes" were "brought"... the "more equal standing under California law" led to... "they began to reject subservient roles. The new immigrants prospered, though they were affected by rising racial discrimination..."

This is, I would argue support for my assertion that "The fact is, considerations of "black" have varied, both in law and in popular perception, depending upon place and time.", as "What segregation did exist was voluntary; blacks could, and did, live in all parts of the city." describes a very different situation than that which existed in the South at the same time.

Likewise, a quick Wiki Search for Free black and the semi-arbitrary date of 1810 came up with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_negro

By 1810, 4 percent of blacks in the South (10 percent in the Upper South), and 75 percent of blacks in the North were free. On the eve of the American Civil War, 10 percent of African Americans nationwide, close to half a million people, were free.<5>

Once again, there is an obvious difference in the legal and social experience in being black from place to place, and from time to time.

So, what I would like to ask is... Is that difference significant? Is the whole issue, the whole of "white society", as well as the whole of "black society" (to arbitrarily use the term that my step father used), to be judged solely upon the criteria of the worst case scenario?

I'm not speaking in terms of historical heinousness, or any sort of justification of horrors... but in terms of points of "not-so-awfulness" that might be useful as a means to construct some sort of roadmarks for a "way forward".

The work of F James Davis which you cited is intriguing for me... especially as it also focuses solely on the "black/white societal dynamic" (a term I'm now coining to consider interactions of the "black and white communities" without considering any of the "cluttering" details of mixed race folk, not to mention influences of other ethnic groups that might change the dynamics of the "black/white community interactions")... as it existed in the Jim Crow South. Granted, the standards of the Jim Crow South, with the increasing interdependences/interactions of different regions of the country after WWII, had a period of "renaissance" ("renaissance of horror" by any sane standard... but a period of increased acceptance and spreading of influence)... but with the 60s and Civil Rights and the Struggle... even that latest blossoming of the putrescent bile of the Slave South was stemmed and largely turned back.

What am I asserting in the above purple prose paragraph? Essentially, that, just as "relations between the races were mostly harmonious" in Oakland until the "disharmonious" elements were imported from the South to work in the shipyards and whatnot... so too do I think that there are, now, signs that the "relations between the races" might actually be returning to, well... at least the "vicinity of harmonious".

What kind of crazy talk am I talking?

Well, lets start with an assertion of F James Davis which I don't, mostly, disagree with:

Masses of white European immigrants have climbed the class ladder not only through education but also with the help of close personal relationships in the dominant community, intermarriage, and ultimately full cultural and social assimilation. Young people tend to marry people they meet in the same informal social circles. For visibly non-caucasoid minorities other than blacks in the United States, this entire route to full assimilation is slow but possible.

Setting aside my reluctance to accept without further word the stark division of "blacks" vs. other "visibly non-caucasiod minorities", I rather agree. However, he goes on to say the following.

For all persons of any known black lineage, however, assimilation is blocked and is not promoted by miscegenation. Barriers to full opportunity and participation for blacks are still formidable, and a fractionally black person cannot escape these obstacles without passing as white and cutting off all ties to the black family and community.

And herein lies a logical difficulty in 2009. "a fractionally black person cannot escape these obstacles without passing as white"... and yet a fractionally black person, without "passing as white", is the President of the United States.

Now... you might want to argue about some sort of difference between "assimilation" and "President of the United States"... but "Barriers to full opportunity and participation..."?... he's the friggin' President of the United States...

And so... I would argue... not only have "the considerations of "black" ... varied, both in law and in popular perception, depending upon place and time."... but I would now have to argue that, even according to the standards proposed by your man, F James Davis, now might be one of those times in which considerations of "black" are doing some variegating.

And, in as much as even F James Davis' conclusions of implications of "black" vs. other "visibly non-caucasoid minorities" distinctions have now been undermined, in at least one VERY SIGNIFICANT CASE... do you think it might be time to reconsider some of the old notions of inter-racial/inter-ethnic dynamics?

Or... do you still subscribe to the "one drop rule", kwassa?

[Karenina]

91. It's ENOUGH now...

:hi:

[Raineyb]

92. "do you think it might be time to reconsider some of the old notions of inter-racial/inter-ethnic

dynamics?"

If it means that we'll let white folks take half credit for a man whose mother is white when they still refer to any other biracial individual as black? Then no I don't think so. You seem to want the exception to set the tone for the debate which makes no sense at all.

[Fire1]

93. My point in my last post to LooseWilly. If he wasn't POTUS

and didn't make it past the primaries and back in the senate, would the white community be so eagar to claim their 'side' of him? NO. Just as they have never been eager to claim their side in any of the rest of us. Bottom line.

[NOLALady]

94. I'm still waiting for them to claim

Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, Rev. Wright, Malcolm X, Huey Newton and......the rest.

[Fire1]

95. That won't happen. They want no part of that crew. Too

militant for their tastes. POTUS, otoh, is the epitome of the black AND white elite. I don't even think they'd claim
Thurgood Marshall and HE looked more white than Pres. Obama!

[LooseWilly]

99. For what it's worth, I think Rev. Wright is pretty much right...

And I would really love it if some white commentator would just admit to how right he is.

Of course... it would mean the commentator's job...

[Raineyb]

96. I hear you.

I'm pretty sure I've made this same point during the run up to the elections as well.

[LooseWilly]

98. Fair enough.

I personally was giving most of the credit to Obama himself... not thinking about it in terms of communities taking credit for having "produced" a person. That is probably just illustrative of my personal blinders resulting from personally never being part of a "community". A personal failing that I can't deny.

If the issue was about communities "taking credit"... then I misunderstood all along. My mistake.

The "reconsideration of dynamics" that I was speaking of was mostly a matter of reconsidering the possibilities, and a sort of "tweaking" of the minute details of the nature of "institutional racism" to reflect the fact that the "details of the institution" have changed... not to say that entire "nature of the institution" has changed.

And any attempts by white folks to try to lay claim to "credit" for Obama is obviously just a confused attempt to get an intellectual handhold on something that, little as they want to admit it, "was never supposed to happen" in their minds. Any impression I might've given to the contrary was wholly unintended.

[kwassa]

101. Your history of Oakland is not accurate.

perhaps you should get to know your hometown a little better.

from a review of

American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland

Robert O. Self

Winner of the 2005 James A. Rawley Prize, Organization of American Historians.
Winner of the 2005 Best Book in Urban Affairs, Urban Affairs Association.
Winner of 2004 Ralph J. Bunche Award, American Political Science Association
Winner of 2004 Best Book in North American Urban History, Urban History Association


http://pocketsofspace.blogspot.com/2008/07/review-of-american-babylon.html

World War II brought a large number of blacks into the city, whom were segregated in West and North Oakland (51). The black community was prevented from owning property both through racial housing covenants keeping them out of most neighborhoods in the East Bay, especially ones in the new suburban cities, and banks refusing to loan money for mortgages (15, 104). Movements for fair housing and fair employment enacted some change, but also led to the conservative backlash of Proposition 13 (95).
Although the primary forces that pushed for Proposition 13 were in Southern California, the suburban East Bay cities gave their support to it as well. It was an, if not the, instance of California homeowners leveraging their individual rights as a class “to disadvantage other segments of society” (289). Proposition 13 hurt the poor the most—those who benefited the least from the reduction in property taxes and were most dependent on the services property taxes provided for. In Oakland the African American population who could not purchase property in the suburban cities that passed Proposition 13 was most impacted by the cuts in services the proposition enacted (326).

another review:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/American-Babylon/Robert-O-Self/e/9780691124865

Robert Self shows that racial inequities in both New Deal and Great Society liberalism precipitated local struggles over land, jobs, taxes, and race within postwar metropolitan development. Black power and the tax revolt evolved together, in tension.

American Babylon demonstrates that the history of civil rights and black liberation politics in California did not follow a southern model, but represented a long-term struggle for economic rights that began during the World War II years and continued through the rise of the Black Panthers in the late 1960s. This struggle yielded a wide-ranging and profound critique of postwar metropolitan development and its foundation of class and racial segregation. Self traces the roots of the 1978 tax revolt to the 1940s, when home owners, real estate brokers, and the federal government used racial segregation and industrial property taxes to forge a middle-class lifestyle centered on property ownership.

[LooseWilly]

103. Uhhm... your book review/report doesn't contradict what I'd quoted.

From Wiki-Oakland, again...

Prior to World War II, blacks constituted about 3% of Oakland's population. Aside from restrictive covenants pertaining to some Oakland hills properties, Jim Crow laws mandating racial segregation did not exist in California, and relations between the races were mostly harmonious. What segregation did exist was voluntary; blacks could, and did, live in all parts of the city. <30>

You did see those first words, right? "Prior to World War II" ?

I then quoted the following paragraph.

The war attracted to Oakland large numbers of laborers from around the country, though most were poor whites and blacks from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mississippi—sharecroppers who had been actively recruited by Henry J. Kaiser to work in his shipyards. These immigrants from the Jim Crow South brought their racial attitudes with them, and the racial harmony that Oakland blacks had been accustomed to prior to the war evaporated.<30> Southern whites expected deference from their black co-workers, and initially Southern blacks were conditioned to grant it.<31> As Southern blacks became aware of their more equal standing under California law, they began to reject subservient roles. The new immigrants prospered, though they were affected by rising racial discrimination and informal postwar neighborhood redlining.<31>

Comparing that with the initial portion of your excerpt:

World War II brought a large number of blacks into the city, whom were segregated in West and North Oakland (51). The black community was prevented from owning property both through racial housing covenants keeping them out of most neighborhoods in the East Bay, especially ones in the new suburban cities, and banks refusing to loan money for mortgages (15, 104).

I see that both mention WWII bringing large numbers of "laborers from around the country" vs. "blacks into the city". The Wiki goes on to say "most were poor whites and blacks from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mississippi—sharecroppers who had been actively recruited... These immigrants from the Jim Crow South brought their racial attitudes with them, and the racial harmony that Oakland blacks had been accustomed to prior to the war evaporated." (which is appended with the footnote:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/26/MNFUSA80E.DTL&hw=Betty+Reid+Soskin&sn=003&sc=552 , which seems to be drawn from the conclusions reached in "The War," by filmmaker Ken Burns- his seven-part PBS series.)
On the other hand, your book review seems to dismiss the influences of contemporaneous white immigrants, one way or the other... but instead to jump directly to the details of the "redlining"... which is mentioned in the Wiki article, but not examined in great detail.

So, while your book review/book report source seems to include the same information about black immigrants stemming from WWII, and it seems to include a greater examination of the redlining (which I never denied)... it does not actually contradict anything I included from the Wiki. Maybe you can find something in the book itself that will state that there was no corresponding influx of white laborers from the South bringing Jim Crow law notions with them?...

In the meantime, differences in focus are not the same thing as inaccuracies.

On the other hand, the point of my citing the information about Oakland was to juxtapose the situation before WWII vs. the situation after WWII in Oakland.

To the extent that the redlining that your book review/book report delves in great detail of the subject of redlining (a practice which, like "Jim Crow laws mandating segregation" wasn't practiced before, apparently) only goes to further my point that the experience of being black in Oakland was different before and after WWII. Hence, different from place to place (Oakland vs. the South before WWII)... as well as different from time to time (Oakland before WWII vs. Oakland after WWII).

And as for the detailing of crumbling infrastructure and declining funding for public measures in Oakland... believe me I've seen the results up close.. it is in fact so acute in Oakland that one can literally see the city lines with the naked eye. The sidewalks are cleaner and the nature and shininess of the storefronts are distinct from one side of the Oakland/Emeryville city line, and even more distinct at the Oakland/San Leandro city line. (Ironically, the Berkeley city line is not nearly so distinct.) I won't even speak of the Piedmont city line, which is actually somewhat distinct even from the nice Oakland Hills homes. On the other hand, West Oakland has finally cleaned up the rubble of the Cypress Overpass which collapsed in 1989, and made a nice stretch of parkland (after doing millions and millions of dollars of industrial toxic waste cleanups).


So... should I expect a critique on the differences I highlighted in percentages of free vs. unfree black populations in the North and South in 1810, also, before you get around to reconciling the differences that I have pointed out with the "iron cladedness" with which you seem to hold your permutation of the "one drop rule"?... Or should I expect you to try to pretend that the rest of that post didn't exist so we can instead go round and round about Oakland?

[kwassa]

104. You are fixated on the wrong thing

in your idea that there were different experiences in different places and times for African-Americans ... you miss the point that racism was everywhere, and that was THE universal experience. African-Americans were victims of that everywhere in this country, and quite visibly in Oakland. An essential point you don't seem to understand.

Frankly, I don't what your point is, or if you have a point at all. It is very hard to follow your wandering monologue.

Having lived in California for 17 years, I know that racism exists. California is so new, though, it doesn't have the entrenched racist traditions of the east over long stretches of history. Many African-Americans migrated to the west coast during World War 2 due to wartime opportunities in the defense industries. Like most everyone else, they were immigrants to the state.

Racist housing covenants kept blacks in certain areas, and also deprived them of the wealth that whites achieved through Federally-supported home ownership programs, after the war.

That was racism, pure and simple. You offered up a more benign vision in your Wiki-stew that was clearly false. There was no racism before the war, when there were no substantial number of black people to be racist against .... what a revelation.

[LooseWilly]

106. I am actually fixating on the point of there being differences...

in order to try to get you to actually specify the terms that you are using. Using generalized terms like "I know racism exists" doesn't allow for any dialogue. I'm not for a second trying to say that racism doesn't exist. I'm trying to say that there are degrees and I'm trying to get you to give me something concrete to deal with when you make assertions like "if you have black ancestry, then you are considered black".

As you point out, California doesn't have the entrenched racist traditions of the East... which makes it hard to know what you really mean when you say "you are considered black". If you mean it solely in context of where one is when one is "being considered black" then it becomes so abstract that it is, once again, impossible to have any dialogue.

I realize that many African-Americans came to Oakland to work in the shipyards and such like during the war. Many of them still have remnants of those Southern drawls... I realize that there were racist housing covenants. I realize that there was racism...

That the black population was only 3% clearly made it easier for the white folk at the time to get along... that was and still is a characteristic of white, or any other, folk... that they don't mind "the other" as long as it only comes along in small doses.
The "Wiki-stew", as you call it, seems to have been based on a documentary which interviewed people about their experiences during WWII.

You, once again, in saying "your Wiki-stew ... was clearly false", seem to be dismissing the assertion, again apparently based on the first hand interviews in the PBS documentary, that white laborers, as well as black, came to Oakland to work in the shipyards and whatnot... and in the same 3 word statement you casually dismiss the notion that the racist housing covenants and redlining might have been notions brought to the area by those white laborers from Jim Crow portions of the country... who, assuming they came as the Wiki suggests they did, would probably have been eager to employ the Jim Crow style laws in California just as they had back in the South, to ensure themselves better access to... well, everything.

The main point that I have been trying to make is that you consistently make these sorts of judgements based on some set of assumptions that you don't seem to feel obligated to share with those with whom you are speaking. Why is the Wiki attribution of the change in Oakland covenant practices "clearly" not the result of values brought with white laborer immigrants?

You've judged me, Obama, and every black person, and every white person in the country... based upon some set of assumptions that you will not deign to share by any other means than the phrase "thats how the country rolls".

As long as you continue to make judgements based on nothing more than your assurances that "you've studied the subject", and the implication that I am supposed to acknowledge that that means you know what you are talking about (talk about "white privilege")... I will continue to question the basis for the judgements and sweeping generalizations that you seem to believe should be self-evident, but which are not.

And if my point seems to be meandering... that is only because you keep meandering from point to point and I am left to respond to whatever unsupported judgements you make.

If all you are trying to say is "racism exists", then just say it already. That I don't disagree with.

[kwassa]

102. Other failures in your argument.

you said:

Wiki quote: "By 1810, 4 percent of blacks in the South (10 percent in the Upper South), and 75 percent of blacks in the North were free. On the eve of the American Civil War, 10 percent of African Americans nationwide, close to half a million people, were free.<5>"

Once again, there is an obvious difference in the legal and social experience in being black from place to place, and from time to time.

So, what I would like to ask is... Is that difference significant? Is the whole issue, the whole of "white society", as well as the whole of "black society" (to arbitrarily use the term that my step father used), to be judged solely upon the criteria of the worst case scenario?

Except for one over-riding historical fact: they were all subject to racism and segregation, free or not, everywhere in this country. What I presented to you was not the worst-case scenario, but was the status quo, and still is for many African-Americans. The current problems with racism and defacto segregation have long historical roots. They haven't suddenly vanished with the election of Obama.

And so... I would argue... not only have "the considerations of "black" ... varied, both in law and in popular perception, depending upon place and time."... but I would now have to argue that, even according to the standards proposed by your man, F James Davis, now might be one of those times in which considerations of "black" are doing some variegating.

And, in as much as even F James Davis' conclusions of implications of "black" vs. other "visibly non-caucasoid minorities" distinctions have now been undermined, in at least one VERY SIGNIFICANT CASE... do you think it might be time to reconsider some of the old notions of inter-racial/inter-ethnic dynamics?

Or... do you still subscribe to the "one drop rule", kwassa?

I never did subscribe to the rule, I merely pointed out the existence of it, which is a well-established historical fact. If you would like, I can bury you in other references about the history of racism in America, though I doubt you would read them, history is not your thing. The one-drop rule is only one aspect of racial discrimination in America.

I don't disagree that ideas about "what is black" are variegating, only that these ideas have not gotten very far yet. Your notion that Obama could choose to see himself as white was stunning in it's naivete. If he were just an individual on the street, as he once was, every white person and probably every black person would see him as a black individual. That is the way this country rolls.

[LooseWilly]

105. It sounds like you are, once again, trying to change the terms of the discussion without warning.

You respond to the proportions of free blacks in 1810 by saying "Except for one over-riding historical fact: they were all subject to racism and segregation, free or not, everywhere in this country." I did not say that they were not all subject to racism and segregation... what I actually said was "The fact is, considerations of "black" have varied, both in law and in popular perception, depending upon place and time." (post 83).

If there were free blacks, and enslaved blacks, at the same time, then I would argue that "considerations of "black" have varied". Further, as a free black had different legal status than a slave, that difference is obviously manifested in "law"... and I think the differences in "popular perception" between enslaved blacks, free blacks in the South, and free blacks in the North is rather self-evident, and the blossoming of the Abolitionist Movement of the times, and the militant response to the Abolitionist Movement, supports a conclusion that "popular perceptions" of "black" varied greatly.

I made that statement in contrast with your simplistic statement "In America, if you have any perceptible black heritage, you are considered black. That is the perception and law for a couple hundred years." (post 78). A statement which you now seem to echo by saying "What I presented to you was not the worst-case scenario, but was the status quo, and still is for many African-Americans." implying a "standardized" status quo.

I still feel compelled to point out that, in view of the differences that I've pointed out and which you seem to want to dismiss without any visible justification, the statement that you make "you are considered black" still... means different things in different times and places. That's not to say that there wasn't stigma, racism, or segregation attached to that "consideration"... that is simply to say that there was a difference between being considered "black" in Massachussetts in 1810, and being considered "black" on a Georgia plantation in 1810. Likewise, there was a difference between being considered "black" by an Abolitionist vs. an Anti-Abolitionist. And being considered "black" in the Jim Crow South was obviously very different than being considered "black" in places like Oakland, or Tacoma, during the period between Reconstruction and WWII.

Ohh, and I feel compelled to point out that it was I who brought up the "one drop rule" (post 81), which you later "merely pointed out the existence of" (post 83). I do appreciate your informing me of historical facts that I've previously brought up though, it is very sporting and erudite. I also find your regular attempts to denigrate my "well-readedness" ("If you would like, I can bury you in other references about the history of racism in America, though I doubt you would read them, history is not your thing.") rather amusing... though I've recently been informed that it is "a very white guy style of arguing". Just FYI, your WASP is showing. (Ironically, I wasn't aware of this. Yet another failure of my "whiteness", alas.)

Of course... after all that... you finally acknowledge the existence of changes. "I don't disagree that ideas about "what is black" are variegating," But you qualify that acknowledgment "only that these ideas have not gotten very far yet." At which point I have to ask, in light of even your agreement that "ideas about "what is black" are variegating"... What starting point are you judging the issue from? And, what is the "end"/"current" point that you are willing to acknowledge in making that judgement of "not gotten very far yet"?

Obviously, if we compare slaves to Barack Obama, Ron Dellums, Maxine Waters, Clarence Thomas, etc. ... "what is black" has come a pretty long ass way. On the other hand, if we take the sort of segregation and racism in New England before Abolitionist issues began increasing nascent tensions throughout the country, and compare that with the modern Mississippi delta, or the Epic Fail that was the Bush Admin's response to Katrina... then ideas really haven't "gotten very far yet".

And, just for the sake of completeness, "Your notion that Obama could choose to see himself as white was stunning in it's naivete." I prefer the term Quixotic Idealism. I would also point out that the words in question are "choose to see himself"... and point out that, technically, Obama could "choose to see himself" as a Space Alien, if he really wanted to... one born on the planet Krypton, son of Jor'ell... sent to Earth to fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

What I actually asserted was that, in my opinion, if he were to choose to "see himself as white"... then I was personally willing to accept him on those terms.

I know... pure naivete. My acceptance is irrelevant because "If he were just an individual on the street, as he once was, every white person and probably every black person would see him as a black individual. That is the way this country rolls." And, here I see another point in which I think our thoughts diverge. I, being a naive Quixotic idealist, am willing to acknowledge and embrace a various and diverse set of perspectives and examine them based upon their internal merits. If someone in Obama's "mixed-race" position wants to identify with the less rather than the more pigmented portion of his/her heritage... I see no reason why I should have a problem with that. If such an individual wishes to define a "space in between", again... I see no reason why I should have a problem with that. Your position, on the other hand, seems to be the fixed one that you have repeated over and over again "if you have any perceptible black heritage, you are considered black".
The fixedness of that point of view, combined with the fact that you insistently neglect to provide any context for "starting points" or "end points" when making your judgements about "progress", reminds me of the lack of any sense of requirement to make clear the terms and assumptions of a point of view which is so characteristic of an "institutional point of view". While I do not believe that you're "point of view" is "institutionally racist"... I continue to get the feeling that the "point of view" from which you discuss and judge many issues is "institutional" in its general structure, and in its implied devaluation of all other "points of view"/"perspectives".

I respectfully contend that, in future, you may wish to consider the possibility that a more explicit explanation of the underlying assumptions of your contentions/assertions might make your point of view more transparent... and that doing so can show more respect for the underlying assumptions of other points of view... a respectfulness which can go a long way if we are going to truly acknowledge and embrace a diversity of points of view. And, in the end, isn't that the gist of the goal of creating a multi-cultural society?

I'm not trying to deny that people on the street will see someone who is black. I'm saying that the "black" that is seen is in the "eye" of those people... and just as the "black" that was seen in Georgia in 1810 is not the same "black" that was seen in New England... or today... the Quixotic Idealism of allowing the "someone" some say in defining the "black" for himself/herself is not altogether an impossibility... as "ideas about "what is black" are variegating". If the idea of letting all the "someones" on the street have some personal say in defining the "black" (or whatever) for themselves ever caught on, then imagine how things might change...

On the other hand, I'm also not dumb enough to not know that there are many people, and many facets of many institutions, that will not readily or even willingly, accept any change in the "black" that they see. I am white enough to have been privy to voiced white opinions on the matter... (not to mention many African cab drivers' opinions on the matter)

I acknowledge the grimness of that latter reality, while personally ascribing to the Quixotic Idealism of the former. Given your predilection for demeaning my reading & comprehension skills, however, I suppose it is possible that you will continue to harbor the belief that I am not capable of embracing both facets of the issue at the same time...

[Fire1]

107. I would like to respectfully suggest you take some

courses in African American History at a MAJOR university and taught by an expert in the field. "just as the black that was seen in Georgia in 1810 is not the same black that was seen in New England....or today....." That is a fallacy on it's face and a common MISconception among many including blacks as well as whites. If you have done any study and/or research on the slave trade leading up to the Civil War you would know that statement is indisputably false.

Overall, attempts to lend credence to generalities, idealism and false assumptions, diminishes the credibility of your motives for entering into a discussion predicated on facts.

[LooseWilly]

108. Can you suggest a source?

The literature I've read suggests a difference in the perceptions/perspectives. The perspectives I've seen in Ellison's the Invisible Man seem, to me, to reflect a very different experience than those reflected in Wright's Native Son... which of course both differ from Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.

All of those examples are, of course, works of literature. The odds of my making the time to return to a MAJOR university, let alone ponying up the cash, are slim... but if you have some specific reading to suggest... maybe something that will in fact explain how all experiences of being black are actually exactly the same, I can make time to read.

In the meantime, and perhaps it is because of the MISconception that you mention, but saying that the experience of being black is not different from time to time and place to place seems to me to be a generality. I'll defer any further judgements until I am presented with sources and or facts.

[Fire1]

109. The CIRCUMSTANCES may differ but the basic premise

remains the same. I think there is a listing of great sources here in AAIG. When I find them, I'll post a link.

[LooseWilly]

110. Ahh, well that's all I was trying to say.

The circumstances, the specifics, differ. I thought it was obvious that I wasn't saying that free black in new England in 1810 faced NO racism, discrimination... hell, in 1810 even the Irish faced discrimination... there was certainly no shortage for blacks.

I hope that I didn't fail to communicate an acknowledgement of the basic premise of there being racism. I was merely trying to get at the fact that the circumstances differed, in an attempt to get kwassa to be more specific about the circumstances/details/assumptions that he was assuming when making his judgements. If I'm making statements based on a different set of assumptions than those he is using, then we aren't talking about the same thing when we say "treated as black". In an effort to be sure that we were talking about the same thing... I have been trying to get him to use more explicit terms. Trying.

Obviously, if I read the books he has read, then I will start to have a better grasp of the terms he is using, even if he has not himself the wordcraft to make them explicit himself.

(On the plus side... I'll probably shut up while I read :) )

[LooseWilly]

64. Ok, I have no argument against the notion that "ALL African Americans are MUTTS!'...

I confess, I was thinking in terms of the outcry from the black community, or at least that which was being echoed by pundits, that Obama "wasn't black enough".

The fact that that "argument" wasn't greeted solely with an echo of laughter led me to conclude that there is indeed a portion of the "black community" that feels justified in judging whether or not a person is "black enough", which I presume is a judgement on connection to the "black community". -yes?

This segment of the "black community", which feels comfortable judging whether or not a person is "black enough", is who I was thinking of when speaking of "uniracial" black folk... in that it seems to me that they must at least consider themselves "black" to the exclusion of "other ethnicities" in order to feel justified in sitting in judgement of the "blackness" of others. Am I wrong to presume a self-identification to the point of "uniracial" on the part of those who would sit thusly in judgement?

While I'm asking, do you believe that there WAS really a portion of the "black community" that questioned Obama's "blackness" in the beginning of the primaries? (Or was that really just a reflection of media confusion when faced with a black candidate that they had to take seriously?)

If there was such a segment (a segment which questioned Obama's "blackness"), were some portion of the members of that segment actually people who self-identified as "MUTTS"? If so, is there no ironic dissonance that comes with such a judgement?

Or was this phenomenon (the questioning of Obama's "blackness", presuming that it actually occurred at all) some permutation of the tension that I've long seen in Oakland between the African American community, and the African cab drivers- but writ large across the country? (As a reflection of Obama's father being from Kenya, rather than an African American community within the US...)

[NOLALady]

45. I don't think so.

"he has chosen to be black."


I have not read Obama's book, but I doubt he had a choice.

[LooseWilly]

50. Do you prefer "he has chosen to participate more fully in the black community, than any other"?

I'm not trying to say that he actually gets to choose the degree of pigmentation in his skin... that would be silly. I'm speaking of community affiliations, and all that that entails in US society. Being of mixed race, I think that he was faced with more of a choice in that context than a "uniracial" person would be faced with.

Granted, black pigmentation carries with it a "special" historical set of societal forces and pressures with this regard... but I can't help but feel that, if Obama had really wanted to, he could've chosen to participate in some other community than the black community. He probably would've been perceived to be even more of an outsider in any other community... but as the questions of his "blackness" in the early portions of the primary showed so clearly- he did face some "outsider" perceptions even from the black community.

I, for one, feel like his ehtnic self-identification is up to him. In that respect, I do think he had a choice. Some options may've been likely to face more resistance than others... but Obama has consistently shown himself to be the sort of man who can overcome resistance and obstacles.

[Fire1]

52. You poor clueless fool. Why do you think he chose to

speak up, in the manner in which he did, when Dr. Gates was arrested? Because HAD HE NOT BEEN WHO HE IS, the SAME thing could have happened to HIM and WHO KNOWS that it hasn't happened to him in the past!

[NOLALady]

55. I doubt if there are any African Americans who are uniracial.

In my childhood neighborhood, there were two families who were darker than Obama. Many people of my community had a choice. Some decided to passe en blanc by leaving town, others didn't think it was worth leaving their families.
My family was biracial. Some of my Aunts and Uncles had a choice. But, a person of Obamas pigmentation does not have a choice.

How could you imagine that he would be perceived as an outsider by the black community? Most people in the black community are only 2 or 3 generations from their white ancestors. They are well aware of their multiracial heritage.

[firedupdem]

46. You don't seem to know very much about the President's

life and how he views himself.

[noiretextatique]

60. obama's experience is not that different from many black people

who grew up in bi and multiracial families. we were and are considered black in this society. it's only recently that the term biracial means something other than black. there were biracial slaves, and biracial people who couldn't pass were treated the same way other black people were during jim crow. the concept of mixed race people is probably still foreign to some, or a fairly recent development in the family of some others, but it's nothing new to most black people. or people like strom thurmond, who impregnated his family's 16 yo black maid. that happened a lot in the south. i have an ancestor who was a slave owner and a colonel in the confederate army. it took a while for me to "embrace" him.

[NOLALady]

61. Hey.

"it took a while for me to "embrace" him."

When I discovered my first confederate ancestor, I cried. When hubby saw my tears, he asked if I knew many 17 year olds with good sense. So, I forgave the old man.
He fought for the South as a teen, but lived long enough to see the birth of 7 biracial grandchildren. One of the grandchildren was named for his wife.

[Fire1]

57. HEY YALL!! I'VE NOW DECLARED MYSELF WHITE. Now,

if you'll excuse me, I have to get my 'touch up,' get this fat sucked out of my behind and do something with these lips!:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

edit to add: TOMORROW I'M RAISING INTEREST RATES!!!

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

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