I posted this sentiment on my blog last year on
December 26, and there it is this morning front and center on page A1 of the New York Times,
"So Far, Obama Can't Take Black Vote for Granted: Identity Issue for Son of White Mother and Kenyan Father".His immigrant dad and white mom are something of a political liability. Not only that, he grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia with his mother and maternal grandparents. Good thing for him he was smart enough to marry an African-American woman, otherwise, he wouldn't have even been electable to the Senate. Could you imagine if his wife were white? Sheesh.
Note Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have yet to endorse him. This is probably not only because Mr. Obama's "black" credentials (which are the key to him being a potential presidential candidate, because if this young, inexperienced senator were white, people wouldn't be very interested in him at this point), but also because there is already a candidate that is much more appealing to African-Americans already on the 2008 ballot: Ms. Clinton.
If you are scratching your head, confused as to why an African-American would vote for a white woman over a black man when they both sit on the same side (roughly, I'll admit) of the political fence, then you definitely aren't African-American. This morning's article quoted columnist Stanley Crouch as stating, "When black Americans refer to Obama as 'one of us', I do not know what they are talking about." This is an obvious issue, and I'm surprised it hasn't come up more prominently in coverage of his political career sooner. Several people have written about it over the years, I'm sure, but I haven't seen something prominent in the mainstream media akin to today's
NYT front-page headline. Please feel free to post comments to direct me to relevant articles -- I'll list them in my next post on the matter.
I think his racial and socioeconomic background will be be more of an advantage in the future, as American viewpoints shift from a complete fixation on "white" vs. "black" and take into account this country's growing racial and cultural diversity. That could be soon, considering the rate of growth of the Caribbean- and African-born population across the U.S. But it won't be before Barack's sporting a head of totally gray hair.
