Desmond Tutu: Obama's "Complexion" Will Help Him In Africa

LONDON — Retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu says that President Barack Obama's background and race will help him influence African leaders.

The anti-apartheid icon says Obama would be freer to make demands on African politicians because he can tell them: "Look here you guys, I am one of you, don't let me down."

"They can't accuse him of being a neocolonialist," Tutu said during a visit to London Thursday. "Complexion helps."

Tutu was speaking at the launch of a report on the Group of Eight's aid commitments to sub-Saharan Africa. As the discussion turned to the issue of African leadership, Tutu said Obama would be in a good position to influence Africa's ruling class.

Obama plans to attend the G-8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, from July 8-10 and is following the meeting with a visit to Accra, Ghana _ his first presidential stop in Africa.

Obama, America's first black president, has roots in Kenya.

Comments

[LadyLL]

Yes he can Desmond! We are truly blessed to have a worldly , honest, respectable leader!!!

[PhyllisJane]

Yes, Obama has roots in Kenya, but he's not an "African-American" is the strictest use of that term.

[papapj]

Why not? He has African roots and he is an American born.

The attempt to marginalize the man is ridiculous, and the appropriation of the term 'African American' by people who would otherwise instantly label him as such unless he described his heritage is petty....

[VLenin-Fan]

So much for being color blind.

[chb018]

Actually blacks still live in Egypt, you just have to get out of Cairo. The Nubians and others still live like they did thousands of years ago. Arabs are racist as hell. Arabs have only been in Egypt for 700 years.

[TotobiAyokoh23]

His first visit to Africa? Does it mean Egypt is in Asia? It is very threatening how STUPID and IGNORANT the WESTERN PRESS is!

[clumberfeet]

I imagine Newt Gingrich would call this reverse apartheid.

[Olby's Unhappy'Girlfriend]

is this the part where i'm supposed to be outraged?

[jasongrundy]

Religion confuses everyone

[hypnus]

Really Desmond. You think?

[papapj]

Why not? Don't you think the relationship between Europe and America has been somewhat smoothed over by a common heritage of the dominant group...?

[iceage7]

African leaders will never change as long as they see leadership thru their tribal prisms.

[davidwayneosedach]

Obama has got enough problems at home before he begins to sort out Africa.

[luvangelHussein330]

Not only his skin color but his name.....fo what its worth I'm glad makes things easier

[angelicious]

complexion in that africans love light skinned brothas? that's not racist, it's keeping it real...

[yasmeen]

they meant his first trip to sub-saharan (black) africa. egypt is geographically in africa but racially arab/european. that's why we say north africa (middle east) and sub saharan africa (blacks). africans consider his ghana trip the first to an "african" nation, meaning racially.

[papapj]

Oh! so you think that no "Black" people reside in the Maghreb....?

The thrust to seperate North Africa from the rest of the continent is racially motivated, as you yourself concede and has no moral or scientific validity. Geography dictates that the entire continent is ONE - latter day revisionists can save their racially motivated (il)logic, they're fooling no one but themselves.....

[SOOKOOYAH GURL]

There are Nubian Egyptian as well.. and many mixed with Arab Colonizers!! But Egypt is still in Africa whether they call it Middle East or not!

[ZenSufi]

Africa isn't a race.

In fact, "African" isn't a race, either.

[kamenwati]

That "Sub-Saharan" stuff is pure nonsense. You need to give up those "racial" fantasies of yours. You think the desert is some kind of magic dividing line that separates humans based on skin color? Absolutely ridiculous. BTW, the Nubians in the southern part of Egypt are not Europeans or Arabs. And they are the people who lived in the region thousands of years before the "Arabs" invaded and conquered the land.

[UU]

Egypt is not Arab/European, it is multiracial, period. Once you leave Alexandria and Cairo (in the far north) the rest of the country looks a lot like its neighbors to south. The north Africa/sub-Saharan Africa designation is a cultural one, not a racial one. Ever been to Morocco or Sudan? If they are white, you are blind!

[vote-obama]

old age is a sad thing.