Barack Obama-Your Momma's White!

So these days (by which I mean the past 6 months or so), one of the main controversies about Barack Obama is that he's, uh, not really black. I take this to mean that he does not meet the traditional definition of "blackness", which I guess decribes somebody of West African ancestry who's family has been in the United States for hundreds of years as a result of chattel slavery in the South. Also, to be considered "black", one has to have parents that both meet this criteria. While I suppose a decent case could be made for this concept, it excludes a significant number of prominent "black" people. By this logic, Frederick Douglas, Langston Hughes, The Game, Busta Rhymes, Notorious B.I.G., etc aren't "black." Yet, these dudes still get put in the "black category."

The reason for this can be outlined by James Baldwin, who states that "As long as you are white, I will be black." The fact of the matter is, that minutiae such as where your parents are from and whether or not your mom is actually white only matter to people with a nuanced understanding of racial politics. The fact of the matter is that the majority of voters in the USA are middle class white people who are either center left or center right depending on who we hate this war and who fucked shit up last term. And those folks aren't sitting on blogger arguing about race all day.

The fact of the matter is, that in the collective subconscious of America, blackness is more of stain than an identity. Hence, if you got the mark of blackness on you, you're black. So Barack Obama doesn't have a choice but to politically identify himself as a black dude. Whether or not he's more acceptable to the white population because his dad is from Africa and his moms is probably from Wisconsin or some shit is an interesting idea, but at the end of the day he's still black to the majority of people who self-identify as white.

There's a rapper named Slug who's 25% black and identifies himself as a black man. Everybody thinks this is cute and errthang, but when people see dude in the street he still gets the benefit of more or less looking like a white guy. Now, Malcolm X was 25% white. What if he came out the blocks saying he was white? I'm pretty sure that wouldn't go over for him all that well. But that was the 1960s Walt, shit was different then! Dave Chappelle is 25% white too. Nobody's about to recognize him as a white person.

At the end of the day, the basic point here is who runs shit in our society and what rules they like to set. White people decide who is black and who isn't, consciously or unconciously. And sorry folks, Barack still gets put in that box.