Is Obama Black?

How many times have we heard this question both during the election and since?  I will grant you that the question can seem pretty silly when we can see his picture almost everywhere we look.  Beyond the obvious, perhaps there is something to this that could bear a bit of analysis.

If we want to look at technical definitions, the answer is no.  Obama is not Black, he is bi-racial.  We almost never hear this on the news or in the general coverage he has received over the last couple of years.  He has a Caucasian mother and an African father.  He is bi-racial.

Ok, that’s the technical definition.   An historical definition can lead to a different result.  In the US, the “one drop rule” said that a person with any African blood would be considered Black.  By this definition, Obama is Black.  You would think that since this definition is a legacy of slavery and racism, it would have fallen from favor, but oddly enough many in the Black community embrace this definition.  I suppose the thinking is that it increases the number of people considered black and therefore political power.

Let’s look at a possible cultural definition.  With a White mother and a Nigerian father, Obama has no familial or historical ties to the US heritage of slavery.   That is a powerful uniting force among Blacks. When his father abandoned the family, the young Barack was raised by his White mother and White grandparents in a predominately White environment.  The inner-city experience was foreign to the teenage Barry Obama.  From a cultural standpoint, it can be said he is not Black because he didn’t share the Black experience.

There is of course a political definition.  This depends on who has something to gain from the definition.  These are too numerous to address in depth, but it has been obvious that some people want him to be considered Black and some who don’t.  I think we can safely ignore those who insist he a Muslim.

I suppose the President-elect should have something to say about this.  This brings us to his personal definition.  From his writing we know that he struggled with his identity in his youth.  We also know that as an adult he embraced his African heritage and through his choice of church, neighborhood, etc. sought to identify himself as a Black man.

If you have read this far, you are probably wondering why I haven’t used the term African-American.  To me this is a politically-correct term that obscures more than it enlightens.  Case in point, a Black American man was trying to introduce a dignitary from Africa.  He kept referring to the man as an African-American which he clearly wasn’t.  On the other hand, Obama literally is an African American.

With so much emotion associated with race and race relations in this country, I think it only makes sense to be as accurate as possible with racial identity.  Obama is bi-racial.  It would go a long way if we could simply leave those other issues behind and move on.  I don’t really expect this, but I can dream, can’t I?