For NBC's Whitaker, This Election Was Personal

NBC Washington Bureau Chief and former editor of Newsweek Mark Whitaker would have been following this election passionately anyway, by dint of his job. But last night on "NBC Nightly News," anchor Brian Williams rebroadcast a moment he shared with Whitaker during election night where Whitaker spoke of why this election had personal significance for him. Turns out Whitaker has a lot in common with Barack Obama — he, too, is of mixed-race parentage (his mother was white, his father was black) and he spoke of their experiences as a couple struggling to live life normally in a country that didn't always permit them to, say, eat lunch at the same table in a restaurant. Here's the clip of that exchange below:

Comments

[lennix]

thank you mister whitaker and thanks to the young to see what we was so blind to that race do not matter and this is way the young will always will be the ones to save the so call wise ones

[chf2go]

As much of a soul warming presence that Barack Obama's election has on the masses, it cannot be fully appreciated except by those who had walked the same path in life. Those of mixed race or black who have been discriminated against have a particularly deep appreciation that is transformational. It's like life before Obama was elected and life after. We are all part of the same fabric now.

[jonjon66]

Mark Whitaker speaks the way many mixed -race Americans actually feel. It's baffling how way too white journalist, Joe Scarbourough at all offer very bland,boring insight into what just happen. Black slaves built the house,and now black Americans live there......like woo.