So I see this twit from Negrophile in regards to Obama's racial identity:
Though famously talkative about being biracial, Obama has also called himself black and African-American, and says he came to see himself as such in large part because that is how he is perceived.
"If I'm outside your building trying to catch a cab," he once said in a television interview with Charlie Rose, "they're not saying, 'Oh, there's a mixed-race guy.' "
The article continues on about how being "black" in America in terms that basically were negative. That is, blackness perceived in terms of what white people thought of blacks and did to blacks. In other words a blackness predicated on and defined by white people. It is a sad state of affairs that black people continue to allow white people and their particular notions of the purity of whiteness to continue to control who is black. I'll get more into that later though.
The second problem is how Obama "came" to see himself. I'm black. I didn't "come" to see myself as black. My momma's black. My dad's black. End of story. Not that I didn't have people around me to point out I was a "nigger" (Thanks for the info Jane), but it wasn't something I had to "come" to understand. What I had to "come" to understand was the consequences for being who I was. Now those circumstances may have had an impact on how I then viewed the world, it had absolutely no bearing on what I was and am.
This is what underlies the huge problem of the social status of "Black" or "African-American" is the US as compared to the genetic reality of "breed" otherwise known as races.
In order to get a fuller grasp of the inanity of this co-mingling of "breed" and social stratification we should look at an impossibly confused post at Jack And Jill Politics
Obama is BLACK. This bi-racial mess is coming up because he’s successful, and because he made the choice, and I do think it was a choice to be Black
Black how? By what definition? Oh yes, that would be the aforementioned "by what matters" thing. See, there's this assumption here as to what "black" means. Now I will agree that the current push to really pin the bi-racial button on Obama is in large part because he is successful and president, but I did say on many occasions that a large reason for his success was that he is not black. It is because he is bi-racial AND has a father that is not African-American in terms of a connection to US slavery. But you know how well folks paid attention to that.
Jack and Jill continues:
While some purport that Obama is ‘ obviously bi-racial’, to which I call BULL, because if we had done a ‘Barbershop’ test in 2004, passing around the pictures of Barack Obama and Harold Ford, Jr., asking which one was ‘ obviously bi-racial’, who would have chosen OBAMA over the at least 2 shades lighter, green-eyed, born of two BLACK parents- Ford? Come on, now.
Yeah, Come on, now. Jack and Jill clearly fell down the hill here. Before I get into the science part, I'll point out that Mr. Ford was "called out" by the Black Agenda Report for claiming his grandmother was white a claim that I'll probably agree with regardless as to what is on the birth certificate. But lets get at why Jack and Jill are so wrong on this point.
For the sake of brevity and clarity for those unfamiliar with genetics let me introduce the punnet square, sideways as I have no intention of firing up Photoshop or Illustrator to make this point. When one has a purebreed anything you represent it by a (xx) or (yy). In this case we will use (bb) to represent a "purebreed" black person. That is a black person who has no white ancestors. We will represent a white person as (ww) as in a white person with no recent black ancestors, since white people, and everyone else who is not black has a black ancestor.
When you cross a purebreed black person and purebreed white person you have the following outcome:
(bb) x (ww) -> 4 (bw) That is all offspring are biracial.
When you take that biracial child and breed it with another biracial child you get the following:
(bw) x (bw) -> 1 (bb) + 2 (bw) + 1 (ww)
If you breed a biracial child and a white purebreed you see the following:
(bw) x (ww) -> 2 (bw) +2 (ww) There are no purebreed black offspring and a 50 % chance of purebreed white offspring.
and lastly if you breed a biracial child with a purebreed black you see the following:
(bw) x (bb) -> 2(bw) + 2 (bb) 2 biracial children and/or 2 purebreed black children
So it is quite the educated guess to say that Sasha and Malia are biracial mostly because in terms of genetics there's a lot that cannot be seen. Of course if you put Sasha and Malia against Bernie or some Africans with no white ancestry it will be readily apparent that they are not "all black." Such is the case with many African-Americans, but by no means all.
So it is possible for two biracial persons to give rise to a purebreed black or purebreed white offspring, though the odds are for producing more biracial children.
From what little we know (and see) of Harold Ford Jr, it is highly probable that he is in fact as biracial as Barack Obama. So Jack and Jill clearly have no clue as to what they are speaking on.
Please remember that the above examples are highly simplified and do not get into polymorphisms or linked genes or any of that. So don't anyone go writing me about it, I know all about it already.
Jack and Jill then gets to the root of the confusion:
nd, what does this sudden ‘ he’s bi-racial’ stuff really have at its core? It’s to divorce Obama from the Black community, because we’ve ALWAYS been a multi-racial people, from the first time the Slave Owner went down to the slave quarters. That’s how we can claim everyone from late NAACP head Walter White to Bernie Mac.
Always? been a multi-racial group? Oh so now you mean the social group of "African-American." Well that's true. But why? Well we have this little inanity called the "One Drop Rule." This piece of White Supremacist garbage was created for one purpose: The establishment of the purity of "whiteness." The White Supremacist dogma claims that all other human subspecies are degenerate at the biological level. Whites (Caucasians) are placed at the top of this genetic pyramid and other groups are assigned a value relative to their position to whites based on such things as hair texture, skin color and level of "civilization." Thus the Asian (Mongoloid) was assigned a higher value than the African. The Indian was actually granted a level of Caucasian-ness" because it is thought, dark skin notwithstanding, they exhibited a great deal of physical similarities with Europeans as well as showing signs of civilization (including the apparent disdain for the darker members of their society). Etc. etc. etc.
And so with this little rule, anyone with any "known" traces of black ancestry was defined as "black." though until relatively recently non-purebreeds were referred to as "colored" to designate their relatively higher status. A status that in fact remains today. As we've already explained above, the idea of a "one drop rule" is scientifically untenable. Why any thinking black person would even perpetuate this dinosaur of White Supremacy is beyond me.
So no, Walter is white and Bernie is clearly black and Obama is biracial as is likely Mr. Ford. And yes you do have the first African-American president since African-American is still defined vis-a-vis White Supremacy rather than genetics. And if one supports the "one drop rule" then Diversity Inc. is right with their 5 black presidents poster and Obama is NOT the first black president. If you go by the "can I get a cab at 2 AM rule" then Obama is the first black president. Complicated ain' it?
Now It must be said that the whole idea of separating out "mixed" "black" folk from the "rest of us" is not new for anyone who has studied history. Even old White Supremacist texts point out that a large number of black "firsts" were either "passably" white (a dumb phrase if there ever was one) or had "significant" white genes. Even these White Supremacist claimed that they preferred these types to the "backward" black of Africa of "low intelligence." This sentiment continues today with studies clearly showing that so called "light skinned black" males (another assinine term) are perceived as less threatening and more intelligent than their black bretheren. "Light skinned black" women are perceived as more womanly, feminine and beautiful, even in the eyes of black men, than their black sisters.
Look at African American leadership in many large cities a large proportion of them are clearly "mixed." The current favorites, Obama, Patrick and Booker have to be the yellowest, "good hair" crew I've seen in my life (Cory Booker sports a baldie like I do so we can't be sure on the "good hair" thing in regards to him).
Anyway, here's to hoping that the rest of us "darkies" get to standing up for ourselves and stop allowing ourselves to be put to the side, to have to apologize for being "too black" in our looks and our speech. For not having to excuse not having a white parent to somehow legitimize our "American-ness" or to be seen as "good looking " despite we're so dark or "smart" for someone so dark. or "So well mannered" despite being so dark.
Lasly lets hope we stop defining our blackness in terms of what other people do to us or say about us, and define it in terms of what we are from creation and correct that Bible verse: I am black AND comely.
No comments:
Post a Comment