"... if he (Obama) were actually black" -- Dickerson article

[Boojatta]

It's good, it's great, that Obama toiled in the state and local vineyards of Illinois before winning a U.S. Senate seat. God spare us another narcissist millionaire buying his way into office from nowhere but his offshore accounts.

Should I have any particular person or people in mind when I read the second sentence?

I also don't understand the significance of the words "offshore accounts." Is it generally considered bad to have a bank account or brokerage account in some offshore place such as Switzerland? Certainly plenty of people have email accounts that, in case of any dispute, will be settled by the laws of some country that is separated from the USA by lots of water.

Edited to add link to the actual article:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/01/22/obama/

(Free viewing after letting an advertisement appear.)

[Boojatta]

1. I have heard that sometimes editors choose an article's title without

getting the author's consent. So perhaps it is worthwhile to point out that the following is from the body of the article:

Since the issue was always framed as a battle between gender and race (read: non-whiteness -- the question is moot when all the players are white), I didn't have the heart (or the stomach) to point out the obvious: Obama isn't black.

"Black," in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent with markedly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and in politics. At a minimum, it can't be assumed that a Nigerian cabdriver and a third-generation Harlemite have more in common than the fact a cop won't bother to make the distinction. They're both "black" as a matter of skin color and DNA, but only the Harlemite, for better or worse, is politically and culturally black, as we use the term.

[CBGLuthier]

8. and when the white american

IS beating the shit out of the nigerian immigrant he should just tell them, "Hold on now, I am not truly a black person"

What a stupid point. Who is this person and why is he the arbitrator of all things "black"?

[Bucky]

18. Yeh, but ain't America great? Everyone gets a say, everyone gets an opinon...

and everyone has a poop chute. True democracy

[Boojatta]

26. This person is: Debra J. Dickerson

She's a writer. It was an opinion piece and she was (presumably) expressing her opinion. I suppose it's possible that she was trying to get a reaction and not expressing her real opinion.

[Katherine Brengle]

11. I can vouch for that --

while most of them will keep your original title, I have had titles chosen for me or changed without consent in the past. It is a fairly common practice. Some writers are not really good at making up their own.


And imo, once you're here, black is black, it just might take a new immigrant time to figure that out.

[Solo_in_MD]

2. While Obama is clearly black, there is some merit to the question if he is really African American

given how and where he grew up.

[TahitiNut]

4. Well, he's sure not somebody whose ancestors were promised 20 acres and a mule.

In that sense, he's not the inheritor of generations of oppression, both political and economic. He is, nonetheless, a minority in a country that's barely able to roughly approximate the claim of equality under the law and the pretense of equal opportunity.

[Solo_in_MD]

5. He went to Punahou...thats better than 20 acres and a mule

[Katherine Brengle]

12. Are you serious?

His father was African, his mother was American...

He's precisely African-American, or of African-American descent.

And he sure looks black to me.

:shrug:

[Solo_in_MD]

15. I don't really care, but there have been those who do question it

since he grew up outside of an African-American environment in a white family in Hawaii attending a private prep school. Their position is that there is more to being African-American that skin color and citizenship. They may have a point and though no one is calling him an oreo quite yet, if it looks like he may be getting close to winning the nomination, that or something like it will be wispered.

[Clark2008]

16. You know something - my white husband was born in Africa.

He (and, for that matter, Teresa Heinz Kerry) are both African-American, but neither are black.

It gets confusing, doesn't it?

[Katherine Brengle]

17. White African is still African...

it's not confusing, people make it confusing to serve their own purposes and agendas (I'm not referring to you btw).

[Clark2008]

29. I know - that's what I meant.

But, if I were to tell someone I didn't know that my husband is African-American, they'd think he was a black man, even though he's not, but he's an African-American.

That's the "confusing" part I meant.

All it really means is that he was born there, naturalized here.

[Connie_Corleone]

3. The article is pathetic.

The only people I hear debating whether Obama is "black enough" are the so-called black "leaders", editorialists and some white pundits. The people I know don't even think about that. As far as we're concerned, he's black. He identifies as being black. You don't have to be descendants of slaves to be "black enough" in this country.

In America, it doesn't matter if Obama has a white mother. If he gets stopped by the cops, he's still just another black man.

[Boojatta]

6. Okay, it's pathetic, but I'm still wondering what this means:

God spare us another narcissist millionaire buying his way into office from nowhere but his offshore accounts.

That's hinting at something, but I don't have a clue and I figure that somebody must know what it's about.

[Connie_Corleone]

9. Rich people running for president I guess.

The offshore accounts may just be a metaphor for millionaires or something.

The whole point was lost on me due to the dwelling on Obama's "blackness". I can't help it. It's one of my pet peeves. It gets me all riled up. Forgive me.

[Boojatta]

25. Actually, it was my fault. Look at the thread title.

My excuse: the thread title is based on the title of the article and I would rather get a derailed thread that includes the info I want than get a thread that sinks like a stone without any replies.

[Solo_in_MD]

7. Obama is like Tiger Woods...he is outside the African American polical machine

and that makes them nervous. He may well diverge from that orthodoxy and imperial the elite status of its current leaders since they follow the 13th commandment (never speak ill of a fellow $GROUPMEMBER)

[Connie_Corleone]

14. Maybe it's a generational thing.

The people I spoke about in my comment above are all baby boomers who went through the civil rights movement. Most of the people in my generation and younger don't dwell on whether someone has earned the right to be called black or African American.

[treestar]

21. What is this "earning the right" thing?

Senator Obama's mother was white. He's half white and half black. He's as much white as he is black.

[Connie_Corleone]

28. I don't know. That's why I called the article crap.

[shanti]

10. exactly!

n/t

[Katherine Brengle]

13. Great post. nt

[kskiska]

19. What about Colin Powell?

Both his parents were Jamaican immigrants. Was he African-American?

[Katherine Brengle]

20. Is Jamaica in Africa?

:P

[kskiska]

23. Jamaicans are Negroes

and were most likely originally brought there from Africa as slaves. Are you saying Powell has no Negro blood?

Then there's Sammy Davis, Jr., whose mother was Cuban-American and whose father was African-American. Was Sammy black?

[Katherine Brengle]

24. I'm not saying anything - it wasn't *my* post about Powell, was it?

If he says he's descended from Africans, then so be it, I haven't the faintest clue whether or not he is.

[Boojatta]

27. Islands close to a continent were originally inhabited by people from the continent.

The original Jamaicans were American Indians.

Members of the Arawak tribe were the aboriginal inhabitants of Jamaica. These sociable people greeted Christopher Columbus in 1494 and provided food and shelter for his expedition. Soon after his arrival, Jamaica became a colony of Spain. By 1650, almost all the Arawak people had died from new diseases brought from Spain and from the hard labor their conquerors forced on them.

Origins of Today's Jamaican Society
In 1655, a British expedition seized Jamaica from the Spanish colonists, who released their slaves and left the island. Many freed slaves disappeared into the mountians. Known as "maroons," many remained free and cultivated their own way of life. The British brought more enslaved Africans to work on their sugarcane plantations. In 1838, all slaves were declared free. Many African Jamaicans opted not to work on the plantations, so British plantation owners brought indentured workers from Central Africa, India, China, and Britain. Some became slaves for other countries. In fact, until slavery was abolished in 1838, Jamaica served as the chief slave market of America.

Source:
http://www.globalvolunteers.org/1main/jamaica/jamaicapeople.htm

Edited to add this brutal factoid:

In order to understand the mass extinction of the Arawak tribe, we must understand that the Arawak population was just not given to warfare, despite a complex social organization. This made them a very easy target for the Spaniards or the Indian tribe known as the Caribs (for their cannibalistic nature) to enslave, take over or kill.

In other words, those who do not take any interest in the sword shall die by the sword. That's a bit of a twist on the old "those who live by the sword shall die by the sword."

[AspenRose]

22. If Obama were actually black?!

News flash: He's black!