unteins ([info]unteins) wrote,
@ 2008-08-28 21:17:00
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I wonder if Martin Luther King Junior is rolling over...
Barack Obama is a tragedy in the Greekest of sense.

I can't help but cringe at the awful irony that on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking these words:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

that Barack Obama is consolidating his run for President on exactly the opposite. Sure, he can claim African American status (so can I, go ask the Census Bureau, it all depends on my sociopolitcal self-identification). but really, if he didn't look African American would anyone believe him? If he looked like his white mother, would anyone be touting his nomination as the first African American? I highly doubt it.

It really is a rather unpleasant turn of events.

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[info]maddogairpirate
2008-08-29 04:56 am UTC (link)
That rationale seems to suggest that everyone voted for Obama because he was black.

I've rolled this over for a long time now, wondering what his appeal was. His appeal is that he's not like the other candidates, and I don't mean skin color. He's inexperienced, he's fairly liberal, he carries a good deal of optimism and talks about overturning the Bush years.

That's his appeal, not his skin color.

Where he fails to win me, however, is that his ideas are vague, impossible without Congressional support (which he will not get), or they're impractical. Or several of the above.

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[info]unteins
2008-08-29 05:54 am UTC (link)
Actually, it has nothing to do with anyone voting for Obama because he is or isn't black.

The point I am making is that his blackness is being promoted by the media and there is no way that he gets the promotion as (at best) half black if he doesn't also look.

One could just as easily argue that Obama is in fact just one more white male running for President in a long line of white males and it would have as much validity as him being black except that he has dark skin and more African American features.

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[info]maddogairpirate
2008-08-29 05:59 am UTC (link)
You mean as a marketing point? Well, I can't suppose I can deny that. However, it shouldn't cheapen his message and policies... whatever they are. Perhaps one day I'll know.

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[info]jordan179
2008-08-29 07:44 am UTC (link)
His ancestry is, in fact, mostly German-American and Arab.

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[info]jadewolf420
2008-08-29 02:22 pm UTC (link)
Uhh... where are you getting Arab? His father was Kenyan, I believe from the Jolou tribe (don't quote me on the tribe name, though). Kenyan =/= Arab

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[info]jordan179
2008-08-29 03:00 pm UTC (link)
Uhh... where are you getting Arab? His father was Kenyan, I believe from the Jolou tribe (don't quote me on the tribe name, though). Kenyan =/= Arab

I had thought his father was of Kenyan nationality but mostly Arab extraction -- I'll have to check deeper into that.

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[info]jadewolf420
2008-09-02 04:24 pm UTC (link)
He's not. Long line of Jolou (also called Luo) / Kenyan, but no Arab. There aren't a whole lot of ethnic Arabs in Kenya, either (there are some, but they are very few in number).

(Sorry for the delay in response, I was moving into new digs all weekend. =) )

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[info]araquan
2008-08-29 05:25 am UTC (link)
It is unfortunate, yes, that King's dream of race not mattering hasn't been realised yet.

But if you want to look at it that way, I still think it's a pretty significant step in that direction that Obama has gotten where he has right now.

That being said, I support him, but it's not because of the color of his skin or any other aspect of his physical appearance, racial or otherwise. He wasn't my first choice before candidates started dropping out- Richardson has that honor- but he was number three (right after Edwards- this was, of course, pre-scandal...). When those two were gone, my support fell to him, but not as a 'least bad' option- I generally approved of him, just not quite as much as the other two. His color never entered into it for me, any more than my support of him over Clinton had anything to do with either candidate's gender.

And maybe that's why I don't see this as a tragedy in the slightest. Because to me anyway, race didn't matter at all.

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[info]pookamiss
2008-08-29 11:07 pm UTC (link)
I like him, but that does really super bug me, as i find him as a perfect mix of both white and black and thats what people should focus on, not the fact that his skin is dark so we just say "african american" and yeah he was raised by the white portion of his family. Hally berry does the same thing, and it has always bugged me about her. shes like "it's hard being a black woman" its like you were raised by your white mom lady, stop that already!!!!!!

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Oh puhleeez
[info]darkestblogistan.blogspot.com
2008-10-21 08:56 pm UTC (link)
Obama certainly looks black. What do you think he looks like, an Italian?

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Re: Oh puhleeez
[info]unteins
2008-10-22 01:51 am UTC (link)
if he didn't look African American

Uhm, see right there I was conceding that he looks black. I certainly wasn't implying that he isn't of Kenyan decent.

I still would argue he chooses to identify himself with the African-American community rather than growing up in that community (Hawaii had an African American population of only 1.8% in 2000 which is almost a tenth of the national average of about 15%).

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