Why is Obama "black"?

Great Debates
1

I am perplexed by the characterization of Barack Obama as being a black African-American man. I can’t say that I really object to it, and he certainly seems to embrace it. But, what, are we back to the one-drop rule? Or are we basing our categorization on the fact that dark skin and coarse hair are dominant genes?

Barack is the child of a black African man and a white woman from Kansas. He is just as much a white candidate as he is a black one. Since he is of half African origins, does that make him African-American? What if only one grandparent had been black? What about 3 great-grandparents? Would we still be talking about the first African-American candidate?

(I have heard some debate that the term “African-American” should not refer merely to someone from Africa who becomes an American, but Americans who are descended from African slaves. Obama’s father came to the US from Kenya. So maybe the term African-American isn’t even appropriate. I’m really not too interested in that debate, though.)

2

If you had a picture of the 100 US Senators standing on the steps of the Capitol, and someone asked “Which one is Barack Obama?”, vitually every single person would say “He’s the black man”. If you said “He’s the white guy”, would that be helpful? If you witnessed him commiting a crime and the police asked for a description, virtually everyone would say “black male”. He’s been called black his entire life.

Isn’t this the most pathetically obvious thing in the world? WHat I want to know is why does this keep getting brought up?

3

It’s one of those vague terms with no well defined meaning. It would probably be somewhat difficult to find an African-American in the US with a 100% pure genetic ancestry back to Africa. So if you want to be technical probably the only people who could claim to be African-American are Africans who came to America in their lifetime and became US citizens. Or of you want to get really technical Africa is considered to be the place where humans first evolved and lived so on a way we are all of African ancestry to some degree.

There seem to have been some attempts to sort of quantify it. Make of it what you will:

In the end though I think it was most people would identify someone as at a first guess. In the case of Obama I do not think anyone would identify him as white.

4

[QUOTE=CookingWithGas]
But, what, are we back to the one-drop rule? Or are we basing our categorization on the fact that dark skin and coarse hair are dominant genes?
[/quote]

Basically, yes. In day to day life, race is mostly about what people look like and what culture they were raised in, and Obama doesn’t look like anything people would associate with the category white.

That depends entirely on what white and black mean in this conversation. In terms of what his parents were, that’s true. Culturally, maybe not.

We might. If he had dark skin, we certainly would.

5

Is Tiger Woods a black man? Most Americans would say yes, but he’s half Thai.

6

[QUOTE=TheBoltEater]
Is Tiger Woods a black man? Most Americans would say yes, but he’s half Thai.
[/QUOTE]

1/4 Thai. His mother is 1/2 Thai, 1/4 Chinese, and 1/4 Dutch. But his dad is also 1/4 Chinese, so he is 1/2 East Asian.

Anyway, we’ve had this debate a dozen times in the last year. Is it really necessary to do it again?

7

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Anyway, we’ve had this debate a dozen times in the last year. Is it really necessary to do it again?
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, didn’t search first.

8

Here’s the latest one.

9

Too bad this question wasn’t asked about the first American mulatto who was born and inherited slavery from his African mother. Alas, it was not and so the Obamas of the world are called black.

There you go.

10

Actually, the way I understand it is that in the early days a person’s status derived from their mother. If the mother was slave (regardless of the color of the father) then the child was slave…if the mother was free (again, regardless of the color of the father) the child was free.

I’m not sure how closely this was all actually followed…I read it in a book some time in the past.

To answer the OP, Obama is ‘black’ because he looks black. It’s as simple as that. Had he been born with the same parentage but looked, say, hispanic or white or asian then he would have been identified as those, despite whatever other races make up his ancestry. As long as folks are fixated on this thing called ‘race’ and make judgments based on how one looks this will be the case.

-XT

11

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Actually, the way I understand it is that in the early days a person’s status derived from their mother. If the mother was slave (regardless of the color of the father) then the child was slave…if the mother was free (again, regardless of the color of the father) the child was free.
[/quote]

None of that matters to my point. Society would have never allowed “white” people to be in chattle slavery. Therefore, the children of slaves always had to be black or some variation of black (mulatto, quadroon, etc.). That’s how the game was played back then and that’s why we had the one drop rule and that’s why Obama is considered black.

12

[QUOTE=you with the face]
Society would have never allowed “white” people to be in chattle slavery.
[/QUOTE]

Well…correct me if I’m wrong here, but I thought a lot of the early immigrants coming to the US, especially from places like Scotland and Ireland were indentured servants, which pretty much WERE ‘chattle slavery’, even if only for a fixed term of years (usually 10 to 20 IIRC). True, after their indenture was up they were free to go (and, afaik, their children weren’t considered slaves by birth), but they were certainly ‘white’.

[QUOTE=you with the face]
Therefore, the children of slaves always had to be black or some variation of black (mulatto, quadroon, etc.).
[/QUOTE]

Well, they could be (American) Indian to I suppose…I believe there were Indian slaves as well. But I get your point, yes.

[QUOTE=you with the face]
That’s how the game was played back then and that’s why we had the one drop rule and that’s why Obama is considered black.
[/QUOTE]

No, I disagree. Obama is considered ‘black’ today because he LOOKS black. As I said in the thread John Mace linked to, I have ‘one drop’ of black blood in my own veins…yet I am not considered ‘black’. No one looking at me would consider me ‘black’…they would guess Hispanic or Arabic or maybe Italian (or gods know what else)…but not ‘black’.

-XT

13

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Well…correct me if I’m wrong here, but I thought a lot of the early immigrants coming to the US, especially from places like Scotland and Ireland were indentured servants, which pretty much WERE ‘chattle slavery’, even if only for a fixed term of years (usually 10 to 20 IIRC). True, after their indenture was up they were free to go (and, afaik, their children weren’t considered slaves by birth), but they were certainly ‘white’.
[/quote]

sigh

Fixed-term servitude in which you’re paying back some kind of debt using labor is different than being regarded as no different than a livestock animal. The latter is what I’m talking about. Having such a low status was incompatible with being a white person. Being a servant was not.

That’s certainly not a universal opinion, since “looking black” is purely subjective and varies across societies. To an African, he very well may look white. And the reason why has to do with social programming. Americans are programmed to see anyone who has visible black ancestry as black. Their programming is influenced in large part by the one drop rule. The one drop rule heralds back to slavery and the ideology that kept that practice going for so long.

Because your African blood is not visibly recognizable to most people. If it were, you’d probably be labled as black. And it wouldn’t necessarily take a whole lot.

14

[QUOTE=xtisme]
No, I disagree. Obama is considered ‘black’ today because he LOOKS black. As I said in the thread John Mace linked to, I have ‘one drop’ of black blood in my own veins…yet I am not considered ‘black’. No one looking at me would consider me ‘black’…they would guess Hispanic or Arabic or maybe Italian (or gods know what else)…but not ‘black’.

-XT
[/QUOTE]

That may well be true, but toss you back 100 years, hell make it 40 years and if someone was able to prove that ‘one drop’ of black blood existed in your veins, you would’ve found yourself a 2nd class citizen; the same as if you were the blackest, black you have ever laid eyes on; regardless of what you think you look like.

One does not have to look black, to be considered black…social construct and all that.

15

[QUOTE=xtisme]
No, I disagree. Obama is considered ‘black’ today because he LOOKS black. As I said in the thread John Mace linked to, I have ‘one drop’ of black blood in my own veins…yet I am not considered ‘black’. No one looking at me would consider me ‘black’…they would guess Hispanic or Arabic or maybe Italian (or gods know what else)…but not ‘black’.
[/QUOTE]

How do you know?

BTW, the one-drop rule only went as far as one could tell. If someone was known to have had a Black ancestor that person was considered Black. But in practical reality, that usually meant anyone who was 1/8 Black or more. Lacking good geneological records, it would be very difficult to tell if someone was 1/16 Black. Even 1/8 would be problematic, in many cases.

16

[QUOTE=you with the face]
Fixed-term servitude in which you’re paying back some kind of debt using labor is different than being regarded as no different than a livestock animal. The latter is what I’m talking about. Having such a low status was incompatible with being a white person. Being a servant was not.
[/QUOTE]

Don’t sigh at me and then toss the above at me. Because it’s called Indentured Servitude doesn’t mean that these folks were automatically treated like servants instead of slaves. Some were…some weren’t. Some of these folks worked the fields just like black slaves did…and under much the same conditions, though they were white. Also, in many cases they would get into a cycle of further debt (i.e. the holder of their contract would keep putting more and more debt on the contract), so that in effect they became slaves for life.

You seriously have a skewed view of how low a status some of these white immigrants actually had back then…and what jobs or conditions they worked under as well. This isn’t to say that white people as a whole came close to working under the miserable conditions as the black did…they weren’t even in the same universe. But it wasn’t all goodness and light simply because your skin was white either.

[QUOTE=you with the face]
Because your African blood is not visibly recognizable to most people. If it were, you’d probably be labled as black. And it wouldn’t necessarily take a whole lot.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly my point…I don’t LOOK black, so I’m not considered black from casual acquaintance. Even knowing I had a black great grandmother I don’t think most people today would consider me black…I certainly don’t consider myself black (or indian for that matter, though my grandmother was half indian).

[QUOTE=holmes]
That may well be true, but toss you back 100 years, hell make it 40 years and if someone was able to prove that ‘one drop’ of black blood existed in your veins, you would’ve found yourself a 2nd class citizen; the same as if you were the blackest, black you have ever laid eyes on; regardless of what you think you look like.
[/QUOTE]

Actually I was alive an kicking 40 years ago and the subject never came up. Mind, I was certainly discriminated against for other reasons…but never for being black or for the one drop rule. Maybe it would have been different if I was born in the south and/or if my family was from here in the US, with US birth certificates and such. Thing are and were a bit different out here in the Great Southwest…here being Hispanic or Indian is what made someone a ‘2nd class citizen’, by and large…and I’m pretty obviously both.

[QUOTE=holmes]
One does not have to look black, to be considered black…social construct and all that.
[/QUOTE]

It all depends on what part of the country you were from I expect. I recall that there were many black/white/other mixes in New Orleans for instance, and that many were fairly high status. I think looks is most of it though…if you look black there is no way you are going to pass yourself off as white or asian or whatever. However, I have no doubt that there are many people considered ‘white’ who have black (or hispanic or whatever) ancestry both today and in the past…and yet were considered white simply because they looked white. After all, how would one measure that in the past? Unless you have your DNA tested (which I did a few years ago…it was VERY interesting seeing the regions some of my ancestors came from), looks would be the only metric one could use…if the whole race thingy was important to someone of course.

[QUOTE=John Mace]
How do you know?
[/QUOTE]

How do I know what John? That people don’t consider me ‘black’? Well, I don’t…nor do I care. No one has ever asked if I were black, nor called me black, though I’ve been asked if I were Arabic, Greek or Italian (and of course Mexican). To paraphrase from Ayn Rand WRT what other people think about me ‘I don’t think about it at all’.

[QUOTE=John Mace]
BTW, the one-drop rule only went as far as one could tell. If someone was known to have had a Black ancestor that person was considered Black. But in practical reality, that usually meant anyone who was 1/8 Black or more. Lacking good geneological records, it would be very difficult to tell if someone was 1/16 Black. Even 1/8 would be problematic, in many cases.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly. I think another factor was which part of the country you were in. I expect it was vastly different down South than out here on the frontier in the West…and probably different again up North.

-XT

17

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Actually I was alive an kicking 40 years ago and the subject never came up. Mind, I was certainly discriminated against for other reasons…but never for being black or for the one drop rule. Maybe it would have been different if I was born in the south and/or if my family was from here in the US, with US birth certificates and such. Thing are and were a bit different out here in the Great Southwest…here being Hispanic or Indian is what made someone a ‘2nd class citizen’, by and large…and I’m pretty obviously both.
-XT
[/QUOTE]

You missed my point. You yourself admit that you have ‘one drop’ of black blood. If you told someone who believed that blacks should be treated as second class citizens, they could use that addmission to label you as black, regardless of what you look like.

In a small town, your life would have changed overnight, regardless of what you look like. You would be white one day and the next day, find yourself unable to use the restroom you used the day before.

Part of the purpose of the one drop rule was to prevent people who didn’t look black from having access to white society; precisely because so many people don’t look black; but have that one drop of black blood.

18

[QUOTE=xtisme]
How do I know what John? That people don’t consider me ‘black’?
[/QUOTE]

No. How do you know that you have “one drop”? Do you actually know you have some recent African ancestry, or are you just assuming you do?

19

[QUOTE=John Mace]
No. How do you know that you have “one drop”? Do you actually know you have some recent African ancestry, or are you just assuming you do?
[/QUOTE]

Do I know? No…no real birth certificates or such. According to my grandmother when she was still alive, HER grandmother was black…from somewhere in the Caribbean IIRC. No idea what that means or how accurate it is, though in Mexico you often get a lot of mixing. I know that part of my ancestry is native Indian, part is Spanish, part is Greek and gods know what else as well…Inuit or Mongolian for all I ken.

[QUOTE=holmes]
You missed my point. You yourself admit that you have ‘one drop’ of black blood. If you told someone who believed that blacks should be treated as second class citizens, they could use that addmission to label you as black, regardless of what you look like.
[/QUOTE]

I suppose that’s true enough…though as you say I’d have to have told someone. And just the way I DO look would have relegated me to 2nd class status (if not a slave) during those periods anyway.

Well, I would never have been white regardless…but I get your point. Again though, no one would know unless it was part of being in that small town, or unless I or someone else who knew mentioned it. Also, I think it would have a lot to do with where in the country we were talking about.

Would be hard to prove I should think if someone looked pretty much like a white. I imagine that unless there was some kind of proof (in official documents) that it would simply be speculation…otherwise I should think people who disliked each other would simply accuse their neighbors of having ‘one drop’ all the time and it would have been like a witch trial. From what I recall, especially in the early days of the South (when IT was the frontier) there was a lot of racial mixing…since there wasn’t a lot of ‘white women’ available. So, you’d have European, black, Indian, maybe Hispanic mixing going on all the time. At a guess a fairly large percentage of poor whites in the South had SOME racial mixing in their blood lines…they couldn’t all have been ostracized.

-XT

20

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Do I know? No…no real birth certificates or such. According to my grandmother when she was still alive, HER grandmother was black…from somewhere in the Caribbean IIRC. No idea what that means or how accurate it is…
[/QUOTE]

Well, there you go. There isn’t some scientific test to determine if someone has “one drop”, and so the rule can’t be taken literally. As long as it’s not generally known that you had African ancestry, and as long as you didn’t look Black, then you could pass. If that meant that maybe you’d best move far enough away so no one would ask too many questions, then you’d do that if you could.