Black and White Enough

One of my colleagues handed me an article called "Decoding the Debate Over the Blackness of Barak Obama" the other day. It was written a little over a year ago, and it talks about the idea that Barak Obama isn't "black enough" for the African American community and not "white enough" for the Caucasians. It discusses the culture of African Americans and the identity crisis that this country put them through during the years of segregation and how the effects of decisions made then are affecting how folks are trying to define their communities; we know that communities are in direct correlation to political leanings, now more than ever. One of the assertions is that one of the reasons the African Americans are slow to embrace Obama as their presidential candidate is because his ancestry is not one of slavery, therefore they do not consider him to be part of their community. They do, however, tend to be more accepting than the white democrats.

I am not sure about the absolute validity of the ideas in this article, and I am at least pleased to see that the author, Brent Staples, acknowledges that the younger generation is a lot more color blind than any other generation (read the part where it talks about the many who check more than one box for ethnicity on the census questionnaire). I certainly do see some self-inflicted segregation in my very diverse high school. But as far as politics are concerned, I see the black community and the white community embracing Obama for this election. See the caucus pictures from my community (which boasts many colors) for proof.













Waiting to caucus



















Rich holds sign "A-E" at the caucus















Doing homework while waiting to caucus















It was a mess, but we all eventually got to cast our votes.