There was a time when anyone who had the slightest shade of brown or black would be classed as black. At least they would struggle to be accepted as white. The situation has changed slightly but will hopefully change to a much greater extent as in the future. The debate has been given a real kick up its backside by one Barack Obama’s election. The event is so momentous and recent that I can’t actually believe it has happened!
I wonder how they would answer if Obama were to pose the question to his entourage (disciples!): Who do they say I am? Although I have been watching his campaign from the start, the first Blog entry I made was 42 weeks and 3 days ago. From those early days many people, including those on his campaign team, have been presenting Obama as an African American. I don’t think he came out to challenge this.
However, slowly, he managed to rise above all that, even in those days of dirty politics when Bill Clinton tried his damndest to drag Obama into the mud of race and identity politics. And then there was that brilliant speech he had to make in response to the furore surrounding his Pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
Looking back, I believe Obama’s success has been to be all things to all people. Everyone, whatever their racial background, has seen something in him which they could identify with. So in the light of the recent debate started by Bonnie Greer probably the answer to the question: is Obama black or mixed race? is that he is neither.
If he really had to be pigeonholed then I would go along with the perspective presented by Yasmin Alibhai Brown. She is probably the best expert on these matters having written numerous books on mixed relationships and mixed Britons.
Hopefully, as time goes, we will come to accept Obama as being beyond race or as the phrase goes, ‘post- racial’. What we probably need now is for many in the wider community, black and white, to become similarly ‘post racial’. That way, in the times to come the Sarah Montagues and Bonnie Greers of this world would be asking and answering different questions.
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Submitted by karamat on Thu, 2008-11-06 10:19.