Obama is Black and So Aren’t You
13 April 2010
(around the time the Census was in full swing)
Dear White Friend,
Recently, you told me that the media should stop calling Obama our first black president and start using a “more accurate” description—our first black and white president. I wonder if you would have made the same self-assured demand to someone who is not also white. Still, I am convinced that you want to say the right things. So, please take the following “I’m lovingly calling you on your BS” response to heart.
There are at least three good reasons why the media should continue to call Obama the first black president.
First off, Obama self-identifies as black.
You really wanna mess with that? Ok, so you made this argument before the media flurry surrounding Obama’s decision to mark “black” on his 2010 Census. Um, remember that 480-page memoir, Dreams of My Father, in which Obama wrote eloquently of how he came to understand himself as a black man?
Second, Obama is a hero for all kids.
You also told me that it’s important that the half-white kids have a half-white president to look up to. Tell me, who have the black kids and the half-black kids and for that matter the one-eighth black kids looked up to for the entire history of our country? They too looked up to a white president, simply because he was the president. But now we finally have a proud black president to look up to together. And you wanna downplay that?
Third, race is a myth. Racism is not.
One of the not-actually-so-hidden secrets of racism in America today is that no matter what labels we give ourselves—no matter how “blended” our families are—our supposed equal opportunity institutions continue to treat people differently based on the color of their skin. If Obama were to have marked that extra box, would it now affect how he is treated in other settings? Would the Tea Partiers stop howling over his supposed alien status? Would the republicans suddenly stop calling his programs communist and start working with him? Not likely.
Three solid reasons.
Please, know that I’m saying this to you as a friend. I want you to understand why your assertion is subtly, but powerfully wrong, so that you can change. I believe you want racism to end. But you have decided that you alone know how to end it. That is why you’re on a mission to redefine black as multiracial, to obliterate any evidence of the racist “one-drop rule.” And why you care so much about how the media labels Obama, why it would be so much easier to stop thinking about race if Obama were, well, a little less black, a little more like you.
But renaming racial categories in the name of undoing racism is silly and imperialistic. Ta-Nehisi Coates will tell you, “blackness” will never be usefully understood through the prism of white racism. When you try to define black identity this way, you (perhaps unintentionally, but nonetheless) squash the splendor that black people generate in giving definition to their own communities, their lives, and themselves.
My White Friend, it is time for us to listen. Our first black president has a lot to say.
Photo credit: David Drexler
13 April 2010
(around the time the Census was in full swing)
Dear White Friend,
Recently, you told me that the media should stop calling Obama our first black president and start using a “more accurate” description—our first black and white president. I wonder if you would have made the same self-assured demand to someone who is not also white. Still, I am convinced that you want to say the right things. So, please take the following “I’m lovingly calling you on your BS” response to heart.
There are at least three good reasons why the media should continue to call Obama the first black president.
First off, Obama self-identifies as black.
You really wanna mess with that? Ok, so you made this argument before the media flurry surrounding Obama’s decision to mark “black” on his 2010 Census. Um, remember that 480-page memoir, Dreams of My Father, in which Obama wrote eloquently of how he came to understand himself as a black man?
Second, Obama is a hero for all kids.
You also told me that it’s important that the half-white kids have a half-white president to look up to. Tell me, who have the black kids and the half-black kids and for that matter the one-eighth black kids looked up to for the entire history of our country? They too looked up to a white president, simply because he was the president. But now we finally have a proud black president to look up to together. And you wanna downplay that?
Third, race is a myth. Racism is not.
One of the not-actually-so-hidden secrets of racism in America today is that no matter what labels we give ourselves—no matter how “blended” our families are—our supposed equal opportunity institutions continue to treat people differently based on the color of their skin. If Obama were to have marked that extra box, would it now affect how he is treated in other settings? Would the Tea Partiers stop howling over his supposed alien status? Would the republicans suddenly stop calling his programs communist and start working with him? Not likely.
Three solid reasons.
Please, know that I’m saying this to you as a friend. I want you to understand why your assertion is subtly, but powerfully wrong, so that you can change. I believe you want racism to end. But you have decided that you alone know how to end it. That is why you’re on a mission to redefine black as multiracial, to obliterate any evidence of the racist “one-drop rule.” And why you care so much about how the media labels Obama, why it would be so much easier to stop thinking about race if Obama were, well, a little less black, a little more like you.
But renaming racial categories in the name of undoing racism is silly and imperialistic. Ta-Nehisi Coates will tell you, “blackness” will never be usefully understood through the prism of white racism. When you try to define black identity this way, you (perhaps unintentionally, but nonetheless) squash the splendor that black people generate in giving definition to their own communities, their lives, and themselves.
My White Friend, it is time for us to listen. Our first black president has a lot to say.
Photo credit: David Drexler