>Now, every single one of us, when interacting with white people,
>were understood to be black - differing shades of color and facial
>structures and the grand, ethnic kaleidoscope notwithstanding, we
>were all just plain old black folk in the mint julep sipping, lazily
>relaxing on the front porch minds of America's proudly euro-spawned
>majority.
>
>So I think the MSNBC zero-thought jerkoff squad dig Obama's Harvard
>aura (everyone loves a Harvard man except perhaps you Yalies) as
>opposed to Shaprton's preacher man style but the fact of being 'half
>black' probably never crosses their television addled minds.
I doubt that anyone consciously thinks of Barack Obama as "half black," but in his speech he made a point of calling the audience's attention to his biracial heritage without labeling his mother "white" and his father "black" -- by referring to "an improbable love" near the beginning of his speech:
<blockquote>On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, land of Lincoln, let me express my deep gratitude for the privilege of addressing this convention. Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant.
But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place; America which stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before. While studying here, my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor he signed up for duty, joined Patton's army and marched across Europe. Back home, my grandmother raised their baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the GI Bill, bought a house through FHA, and moved west in search of opportunity.
And they, too, had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream, born of two continents. My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. (<a href="http://www.dems2004.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=luI2LaPYG&b=131063&ct=158769">"State Senator Barack Obama" [Transcript]</a>)</blockquote>
And near the end, Obama emphasized, among other things, "There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America."
So, it is safe to say that Obama wanted to send a not-so-subtle message that he embodies in his biracial person and background a longing for race-less America, and it won't be surprising if such a message is more pleasing and reassuring than those of older generations of Black politicians. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>