AP via Salon.com
No one could accuse the media of ignoring Barack Obama's race. From the first twinges of buzz surrounding his presidential run, the Illinois Senator has been the subject of endless articles emphasizing his impressive resume - and the fact that he's black. His skin color has also brought race to the political forefront, with journalists speculating whether the 2008 race will rest on which enduring prejudice American voters find it harder to shed, sexism or racism. But heating up alongside the accolades is a debate over whether or not the charismatic candidate, the U.S.-raised son of a East African father and white mother, is in fact "black" at all. Novelist and essayist Stanley Crouch led the controversial charge back in November, declaring in a New York Daily News column titled, 'What Obama isn't: black like me" that, "while [Obama] has experienced some light versions of typical racial stereotypes, he cannot claim those problems as his own - nor has he lived the life of a black American." In December, Los Angeles Times contributing editor Gregory Rodriguez followed with "Is Obama The New Black?" in which he defended the Illinois Senator's right to use the moniker and pointed out that many prominent black political figures, including Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, were at least half white.
Meanwhile, Obama's public embrace of the title "black" has won over some journalists. Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page supported the Senator's self-categorization as a "black" American, applauding his decision to "not run away from the label, unlike, say, Tiger Woods, who famously told Oprah Winfrey that he likes to call himself a 'Cablinasian,' for 'Caucasian, Black, Indian and Asian.'" Still, Obama's lack of authentic "blackness" in the eyes of potential voters and fellow black politicians has remained the subject of doubts about his candidacy's viability, and been cited as a reason for his cold reception and subsequent lack of support from long-standing African American leaders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
Last week Salon renewed the debate with a piece titled, "Colorblind: Barack Obama would be the great black hope in the next presidential race -- if he were actually black." The article defined "black" in a political and cultural context as "descended from West African slaves" (as opposed to Africans like Obama's father, a voluntary immigrant from Kenya). Like Crouch, writer Debra Dickerson charged that Obama lacks the experience of being "black for a living" by becoming involved in political protests or "any form of racial oppositionality," and that his "nice, safe" presence in the presidential race provides whites with a "paroxysm of self-congratulation" over their support of a black candidate. The piece drew a massive response from readers and was countered by journalist Gary Kamiya, who offered an alternative thesis: Obama is indeed black, he just isn't "black," according to Kamiya's definition of judging blackness not by "whether one is descended from slaves, but the degree to which one sees one's identity as determined by one's race." The Obama camp has thus far ignored the controversy (or, at least, not issued a formal response to the media), and the question remains whether the debate itself is a form of reputation smearing or an issue germane to his candidacy. Though with polls like this trickling in, it's clear that Obama's level of blackness is more than just a semantic argument.
Related:
Obama's Other Education: Never Let Them Know What You're Thinking (But Always Let 'Em Assume) [ETP]
