So there’s this letter in today’s Dear Abby about the way President Obama is referred to by black Americans/self-identifies as a black man. And it contains an argument I’ve heard before about the white “half” and so I feel compelled to point out a few bits of historical and social context in the interests of not listening to people make this argument any more. First up, we live in a society that coined the One Drop rule to ensure that racism had a solid generational footing. The impact of that rule, Jim Crow etiquette and laws, and a host of other bits of institutional racism are still being felt today. Terms like mulatto and colored carry a whole lot of cultural baggage in America that most (if not all) people with good sense want to avoid heaping on anyone else. So, that brings us to words like biracial or multiracial. And yes, President Obama (much like my eldest son) is technically biracial. However, he is not light enough to pass and so he has spent his life (regardless of the color of his mother and grandmother) being treated as a black man in his everyday interactions.
My son isn’t light enough to pass (not that I’d want him too) either and he sees himself as a black man. Some of that is definitely influenced by upbringing (after I divorced his father, I eventually remarried and his stepfather is black), but it is also a product of what he sees in the mirror everyday. This idea that a society that engineered distinctions like the One Drop Rule, mulatto, colored, quadroon, octoroon, and quintroon is going to be filled with people that look at someone with a skin tone that reflects black ancestry and see the white/Asian/Latino/Indian/NDN ancestry as paramount is frankly ludicrous. I’ll let you in on a secret, your average black American with a family line present in America for longer than 2 or 3 generation is part something else. Maybe white, maybe NDN, whatever the racial background, when they go outside and walk down the street unless they are light enough to pass for white (and have the requisite features of thinner lips and a nose that is high and narrow enough) someone is questioning their background. More importantly they are encountering racism (subtle and overt) that constantly informs their experience.
And yes, there is some backlash (from all sides) attached to the notion of self-identification for multiracial people especially if someone feels that the racial identity established is too narrow/disrespectful of the other ancestry/too general. We’re a country that likes boxes and labels (see every single discussion of Tiger Woods) because we’re a country that has built an entire caste system on racial classifications. My son’s biological father is white, but his experience in society? It’s not that of a white man. It will never be that of a white man. When President Obama refers to himself as a black man it’s not a denial of his mother, it’s an acknowledgment of his experience. Is that a good statement about the state of American race relations? Probably not. But this the reality of living in a country that periodically trots out the idea that being tolerant or color blind is the only way not to be racist.
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Race, Terminology, and Self-Identification
I’m a bit puzzled as to why Rev. Alton E. Paris, the pastor of the Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Kaufman (on my way to Dallas when I’m coming from home), is saying, “The labels tend to divide us into groups which separate us rather than bring us together.”
I seem to remember reading something recently that the average American black person is about 75% African, 25% European by ancestry; relatively few can claim a pure African bloodline just because of all the (usually forced) mixing in slavery days. And of course there’s a fair amount of reproductive integration these days, too. (Did it go down in between, or were people just quieter about it?)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the “these people really are just your cousins” argument has never worked for me when arguing with racists in the South.
In the case of Mr. Obama, though, while I would certainly consider him “black” as would most people I know, don’t many black Americans draw something of a distinction between descended-from-American-slaves black and just ‘ordinary’ black? There’s certainly going to be a cultural difference; my daughter’s godfather is black, from the Caribbean (well, from NYC, but his family came from the Caribbean), and he is not swinging to the same cultural vibe as, say, the black folks in my grandmother’s Mississippi town – he’s not even listening to the same band. And yet, you’re quite right that although his family didn’t have the same experience as other black American families, white people off the street are going to perceive him as “black”, full stop, and go from there.
I’m not an expert on the cultural taxonomy of black people, so I welcome any additional information or guidance here.
I am actually shocked she printed that.
I think the thing with Obama is that he was raised by a white woman. Black is a culture as well as a race, which, I think, is why people are hesitant to refer to him as “Black”. Really, the terms “biracial” and the anachronistic “mulatto” are a cop-out, because when people call him anything but “black”, they really mean “he looks like a black dude, but he doesn’t sound like a black dude – it must be because he’s half white”.
Thanks for covering this – I actually had read Dear Abby just before heading here, with incredulity fresh in my mind that she had actually printed a letter espousing mulatto as a “correct” term. Abby left a note that this would further be addressed tomorrow; I hope between now and then she can do her due diligence with history.
leah: Shortly before the US election, my local paper ran a letter to the editor that was, I think, almost exactly the same (definitely endorsed “mulatto” as the appropriate word). I nearly choked when I read it. Fortunately, several people wrote “WTF?!?” letters in response.
leah,
Hopefully Abby will do her due diligence with etymology, since IMO mulatto is the most offensive because it comes from the word “mule,” implying that mixed race people are the sterile offspring of two different species.
Silenced is Foo,
What I think they really mean is that he doesn’t fit their stereotypical perceptions of how a black man should sound/act/be, so they try to find another term for him rather than fix their messed-up perception of blackness. Which is a whole different problem.
So nice to read a discussion of this topic that doesn’t involve screaming posts and discord. I am the son of a Black man and an Icelandic (White) woman. I was born in 1969. I am old enough to remember being spit on at the playground im Souther Maryland, spit on when I was overseas, and called the ‘n’ word more times than I can count, including at church, in Florida. Friendships between myself and White children were ended by their parents at a time when it ‘just wasn’t fitting.’ It is unfortunate that the fetish of race (not sexual, per se, just the general obsession with it) in our country has kept so many people apart. I agree with the writer of this article today that it is the closest thing to a caste system that our country has.
I identify myself as as Black in general. It isn’t to deny the very loving and supportive White family I love and was raised by. There just isn’t time to explain, literally, one’s racial makeup in the course of fleeting, casual, daily introductions. ‘Bi-racial’ sounds too clinical, ‘mulatto’ sounds like an old MGM movie, anyhting with a ‘roon’ in it sounds like a pastry….For me and my choice it’s easier and more accurate, based on my experiences and how I am seen by others, to identify as Black. When you have the time or the closeness to get more into it, like a blog post, a conversation or talking with people, you can get more involved about your racial background, I have found.
What is important, especially for the youth of today, is to see them as human beings and foster self-acceptance and inclusion in the most important race of all: the human race. Race was never an issue within my families and the way I was raised. The categorization, rude questions and the occasional hatred came when I was outside of my family’s protection and love. Identifying as Black isn’t a slap in the face to your other racial components. I was raised to embrace it all and hopefully that is where our country is headed as the decades-old reliance on labels and quick categories start to fade and evolve. It’s a start, at least, and when people smart enough to know better keep this acceptance and humanity in mind, it’s a beautiful thing.
I’ve known that ever since I was a kid; you can have the same discussion about ancestry with black Americans as you can with white Americans (I’m 1/2 this, 1/4 that, 1/8 that). Almost everyone whose family has been in North America for more than a couple of generations is ethnically mixed, regardless of their skin color, and most African American families have been here for a very long time. Gee, I wonder why they don’t have the same cultural cachet as the Brits and the French. (snotty voice: “My family has been here since the seventeenth century!”) Wait. Don’t answer that.
Out here in Chicago there were at the beginning of the campaign newspaper stories that asked if then-Sen. Obama was black enough to get the support of the black community. As noted in posts above, the issue was not his skin color but that his upbringing and cultural background is much different from a lot of blacks in this country. The answer turned out to be “yes”, but it does point out that “black” is not necessarily describing only skin color – it has cultural content.
Well, as to cultural content..it’s .exactly what Karnythia said. “When President Obama refers to himself as a black man it’s not a denial of his mother, it’s an acknowledgment of his experience.”
Along with the experience of being treated like a Black man by a society that still generally follows a “one visible drop” rule, the President married a Black woman, for years they went to a Black church, and their circle of acquaintances seems to include the 21st Century version of the Talented Tenth.
I think Nojojo hit it spot on – people don’t want their stereotypes broken, so they try to rewrite reality to fit.
‘Black is a culture as well as a race, which, I think, is why people are hesitant to refer to him as “Black”.’ (Silenced is Foo)
‘he doesn’t fit their stereotypical perceptions of how a black man should sound/act/be’ (nojojo)
I’m not a White American (ethnic group), but if I moved to the States, I’d be White (race). A fairly odd sort of white, but people would just consider me weird as a person, not try to redefine me in racial terms.
Not to derail the main point here, but lots of American white people would be surprised if they did detailed research on their own bloodlines, too. I was.
NDN? I don’t understand what this means.