I've heard Obama being referred to as an African American...that makes at least a little sense. But more often than not, he is given the epithet 'Black'. He's the first viable 'Black' candidate they say. But honestly, why is Obama Black?
The man's mother is a lily-white woman from Kansas, his father is a Black African from Kenya...doesn't that make him half-black and half-white?
Of course, I know the historical reasons for this. The one-drop rule in America means that if a person has even one person of African origin in his ancestry, it makes him Black. But you'd think that a hundred and fifty years after abolition and reconstruction, fifty odd years after Brown vs. Board of Education, the one-drop rule would be archaic and defunct. Not so.
It seems that we are still incapable of thinking beyond race; that culturally America is still incapable of thinking outside of pigeon-hole definitions.
Instead of claiming that Obama could be the first Black candidate, won't we accomplish more by celebrating the possibility of true multiculturalism and multi-racial diversity in the next White House?
