EVERY single article we have read about Senator Barack Obama includes the sentences below:Born to a white mother and a black Kenyan father, reared in Hawaii by his white grandparents and for a few years in Indonesia with his Indonesian stepfather, Obama in many ways embodies the one American he often talks about.
Although Obama identifies himself as African American, the media seems to be insisting that he is who he is because of his white mother. That is, he is a successful black man because of his white blood and white cultural influences. We did not hear too much about Jesse Jackson's mother or Al Sharpton's mother. Surely The Media did not mention that they were black in every article. Sharpton and Jackson's mothers also raised very successful black men. The articles also usually note that Obama and his mother were abandoned by his father.
The message that blacks are getting from the white media is that "we accept him because he was raised by us, half his blood is from us and he has totally adopted our culture and point of view (in our opinion). There is no black community in America and even if there is, it should be ignored. The blacks should move over here with us even though most of us don't want them over here. "
Of course the interesting thing is that Obama knows all of this. The trick is how he handles it to gain the presidency. He knows he can't pull a Tiger Woods and deny his color. That means he will address 'black' issues head on. It also means that he will be seen as 'being black' by whites who want to make him white. Isn't race politics in America interesting? Stupid, but interesting.
