Last month, I wrote this blogpost about the shooting of 20 people, six fatally, in Arizona. Got a lot of comments, some of which inevitably fell off the mark. In fact, a duologue developed between two commenters, and I pretty much stayed out of it until one wrote:
Also calling the President a “black” man would be wrong. He happens to be biracial.
This made me peevish. I responded:
It would NOT be wrong to call the President a black man. He identifies himself as a black man. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17958438
One of the interesting things that the OMB in 1997, in anticipation of the 2000 Census, did was to allow people to opt to identify themselves as of more than one race. Previously, someone like Barack Obama WOULD have been identified as black by Census.
There are plenty of Americans who identify as white [that are] of mixed heritage, just as there are mixed-race people (Halle Berry, whose mother is white, comes to mind) who identify as black. Their decision, not anyone else’s. I should have noted that Berry’s mother ENCOURAGED her to identify as black since that’s how the world would see her anyway.
To which he responded:
Mr. Green
You would be correct, at the end of the day, it is the person that wishes to be identified with a race or group. I just know my wife was a tad upset when he kept calling himself a black man. It kind of disavows half of you, I guess.
Then suddenly, I GOT it. Barack Obama identifying as a black man means, to some people, that he is rejecting part of himself. That WHITE part of himself. And in doing so, he must be, to their minds, kind of reverse racist.
That idiotic “365 Ways to Drive a Liberal Crazy” I’ve referred to actually also addressed this: “Next time you hear a reference to ‘America’s first black president,’ counter by referring to Obama as ‘America’s 44th white president.’ Explain that you’re doing so on feminist grounds: ‘What? You’re trying to tell me that his Caucasian mom’s genetic input doesn’t count? But that’s so SEXIST!'”
A category of biracial, which has been recognized for less than two decades culturally just does not trump centuries of someone who looks like Barack Obama, with a black parent, being categorized as black. In the 1970 Census, the 1980 Census, the 1990 Census, he would be considered black (or Negro or African-American – whatever). When Barbara Walters asked him on The View why he didn’t consider himself biracial, I suspect that she already knew the answer from his autobiographies and from her understanding of history.
Not that he rejects his white mother, for whom he has expressed great love, and who was present when his father was not. Or even her race, as when the President-elect referred to himself as a mutt, which displeased some people, many of them black, who did not want to diminish in any way the significance of a President of African descent.
So race in America is still a bit of a landmine, even with a black – or biracial – President.
Well said, Roger. I think the fact that people even discuss this at all kind of proves that the notion of a “post-racial America” is a total myth. Race still matters very much. After reading your post, I think maybe it’s because race still matters so much that people get so adamant that President Obama should call himself “biracial” and others are equally adamant that he should not.
“I think the fact that people even discuss this at all kind of proves that the notion of a “post-racial America” is a total myth.”
The existence and prevalence of the phrase “post-racial America” is the only proof one needs that race is still an issue, for it extolls the idea that racial harmony is not the ideal. Rather, the ideal is to have it so that race doesn’t exist, and that we all see each other as colorblind and actively eliminate all those differences until everyone can be seen as the same (translation: everyone should act white).