Is Barack Obama really black? Actually, I’m not so sure

Ed B

From your Nairobi correspondent: I was discussing the US election yesterday with my gardener, who asked me who this Obama fellow was anyway. I told her how wonderful it was that the US had elected a black president, throwing off the shackles of history etc etc. Then I showed her a picture of the great man himself (a bumper sticker on my car). She examined it for a moment and then turned to me with a puzzled expression: "But mzee, he is white!".

cuffleyburgers

Finally some sane punditry.

From the start I liked both candidates, but I'm afraid I lost sight of both of them under a tidal wave of total bollocks.

I suspect Obama will be a massive disappointment to most of his supporters, due to his huge disadvantage of having been born a man, of woman.

Also I am looking forward to seeing the disillusion register in the Euro-socialist press once they start to realise that he is for all their imaginings, an american and will not be turning the USA into some sort of New Brussels. Yes I will enjoy that.

However, he will hopefully be a good president, heaven knows we need one.

Matthew Blott

Aside from the gratuitous personal score settling dig at the BBC not a bad summary. It's nice to hear someone correctly refer to Obama as mixed race.

TDK

Via the BBC, there is a reverse Bradley effect

"A recent Gallup poll suggested that 9% of Americans would be more likely to vote for Mr Obama because of his race, compared with only 6% who said they would be less likely to vote for him."

http://tinyurl.com/66q26v

In any case, polls in the UK showed Major was going to lose to Kinnock but it turned out that right wing voters tend to be under represented in opinion polls.

Mike

How long into Barack Obama's presidency will it be before we hear the refrain from somewhere: "He may have a black skin, but he has a white soul."

Ashley Slater

Great piece Rod. I didn't particularly want Obama to win. (Am I allowed to say that as a white, middle class, er, liberal?) He speaks wonderfully, of course, and seems like a smashing bloke but my natural instinct is to mistrust anything that seems too good to be true. I also have a Shakespearean fear of the mob and there was a certain mob mentality in the hysteria surrounding our new Messiah. His track record is thin - he certainly wasn't chosen by the Democrats purely on merit - and I also don't really understand his policies. I wonder how many people do. I shall ask my Obama loving friends next time they slap me on the back and say how great it is. I also had the impression that it was 'cool' to be white and support the acceptably-black-but-not-too-black-like-that-scary-Al-Sharpton candidate, like it's cool to have mixed race friends who work for the BBC, and I've never been that cool. I also worry about the impossible level of expectation heaped on one man's shoulders. But what really shocked me about the campaign was the rubbishing of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, two women who have achieved a lot, in very different ways, and deserved more respect, especially from their fellow women. If racism is no longer a major factor in US democracy - who are we kidding? - then sexism certainly is. And that saddens me as much as a cappuccino-coloured world gladdens me. I wish Obama luck. He'll need it. PS. Who were Jesse Jackson's crocodile tears for, I wonder? Himself?

D Short

Time for the Republicans to find a black, female candidate....

Bill Corr

The degree of 'blackness' of the current President-elect is beyond dispute. Barack Obama is also of very mixed European heritage on his mother's side; those Irish-Americans who wore O'Bama teeshirts were not wholly facetious.

What IS still a matter for occasionally rancorous debate is the degree to which the following U.S. Presidents were -or were not - of part-African descent: Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. The issue was carefully researched by the historian Leroy Vaughn in 'Black People and Their Place in World History' and has been discussed in the the U.S. magazine DiversityInc [DiversityInc.com].

One now-forgotten Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was of part-Indian descent; the celebrated William Dalrymple has researched the long relationship between Indians and Brits over many generations.

Corin

Black, but not too black; white, but not too white; young, but not too young; old, but not too old; horribly liberal, but dresses conservative and has the media on his side; American, but not too American; Christian, but not too christian; Muslim, but - hmmm; citizen of the of the wolrd - or is it Kenya, Indonesia...; who is this man? Everything you want him to be and nothing of the sort. The disappointments will start as he appoints his staff and will really get going on January 21st. What happens when the the blacks don't get it all handed to them? Or when the Muslims realise that they don't get all of Israel, just some of it? Or when Putin becomes president and generates a crisis? Or when he realises that Bush's little wars are like small earthquakes, not very nice, but better than the big one? Or when California's gays demand that he over-ride the democratically expressed will of the people?

Better pray they find his birth certificate, wherever that might be.

Dave

Entertaining piece as usual, but I do have to take issue with your suggestion that African-American voters, who are well over 90% Democratic by party affiliation, were somehow exhibiting racist behavior by supporting Barack Obama's candidacy in large numbers.

Also, your thesis that Obama wasn't accepted by the African-American community as black early on in the race simply doesn't ring true. The simpler, and I believe, more credible, explanation is that black voters originally were sceptical that Obama would be able to gain enough support among the wider electorate to emerge as a credible contender for the nomination, and so they reasonably concluded that supporting a tried and true ally like Hillary Clinton made sense. Support for Obama among African-Americans took off once it became clear in Iowa and New Hampshire that white voters were indeed ready to support his candidacy in large numbers.

Finally, I was quite disheartened to learn of Melanie Phillips' support for Barry Goldwater in this year's Presidential race. I would have assumed from reading Mad Mel's columns that she had someone far more hawkish in mind. But then, General Curtis ("Bombs Away") LeMay is no longer available, is he?

Stephen Rothbart

The similarities between Blair's ascent to lead Britian after so many years of unpopular Toryism and Obama's victory over an unpopular Republican administration is uncanny, even down to the two candidates who are both seemingly charming but underneath it all, seem to be somewhat devious, empty suits.

Only time will tell if Obama will actually rise above his own abilities, but let's hope so for the sake of the Free World he can. So far with John Kerry in charge of world affairs as Secretary of State, the omens don't look too good.

Blair was a huge disappointment, and he had all the benefits of a sound economy and a reasonably stable world order to inherit.

None of these are available to this man who has had so little experience at, well, anything really, apart from running for President, which he did very well. But against a very unpopular ruling party, he would have had to have been really incompetent no to.

Herbert Thornton

Ed B reports that his gardener, on being shown a picture of Obama said - "But mzee, he is white!".

Is that just Ed's translation of what she said, or did the gardener actually say that Obama was a chotara?

Walter Ellis

Rod Liddle says that the fact American blacks voted for Obama en bloc was "strange". Given that Obama was head and shoulders above McCain and that blacks had spent the previous half century voting for whites, I respectlessly disagree. Liddle next informs us that Obama used not to be considered black while he was engaged in Chicago politics. This is just nonsense – and perhaps was intended as such. How on earth would Liddle know? Finally, he tells us how pleased he is that Obama won. Well, that's just grandy and dandy. I imagine the President-Elect will be tickled, er, pink.

Mehran

It's always a joy to read your columns, though I don't agree with you one bit about Obama. He's just a clever salesman, of the kind that are found in smart car showrooms. If Tony Blair and Jimmy Carter were to have a child (if you can bear thinking about that possibility) he would be very much like Obama.

By the way, leave Melanie alone. I'm not going to say this again.

KB

9% of blacks voted for Bush in 2000.
11% of blacks voted for Bush in 2004.
4% of blacks voted for McCain in 2008.

I'd say something was going on.

rod liddle

I'm sorry, y'all, I'm just not having this. If 97 per cent of white folks voted against the black candidate in an election , do you think for a moment that a racial element would not be inferred? Do you really think that Obama's colour (late on) had NO effect on black voters? You really think they voted for him solely because of his policies? If so, I think you are purblind. And blind too - based on what black voters said, over and over again, emerging from the polls.

It wasn't "score settling" with the BBC - I like the BBC. I thought its run-up coverage to the election was excellent. But that results programme seemed badly produced, to me.

Obama not considered "black" in Chicago? His words, not mine

Zomby

I believe Berlusconi resolved the question of race this morning.

william hart

rather smug, you British. Where is your minority PM candidate? Disraeli doesn't count, and it has been that long. That all the Brit press seemed to long for Obama seems to reveal a certain puerile desire to see America "knocked down;" a faint jealousy, perhaps.

John

Dave - Rod's comment about Mel and Barry Goldwater were funny. However, concepts are not innocent and your use of "Mad Mel" is not innocent or funny but sadly fashionable and potentially insidious. Disagree with her of course - but tell us why - don't just rubbish her contributions.

James R

You persist with the notion that Palin engaged in subtle racism in her comments about Obama not living in the 'real America'. Yet you acknowledge later that he is one of the most liberal Democratic senators. I know from your usual libertarian sensibilities that you value free speech. So why give support to the idea that normal speech needs to be tested for 'dog whistling' tendencies by the dog whistle police? You know where this stuff leads.

Dave

I'd just like to say that if 97% of African-Americans who went to the polls voted for a candidate they felt wasn't 'black enough', it would be interesting to see what level of support they could muster for a candidate to whom they could really relate.

Nobby

Rod, Interesting, insightful and funny. Good stuff.

Ed B

Herbert Thompson - No, the word she actually used was Mzungu which means white person. Mind you it is a pretty flexible term here - my own children are half 'n half and they are often referred to as mzungu as well.

I haven't come across the word chotara before - had to google it. The slang here is "pointy" as in "point five" as in "half".

A. MacAulay

I fear you are all missing the point! The real election heroes are Obama's grandparents because they supported their somewhat wilful daughter at a time when being a "white" single mother with a "black" child was a social disaster. They also allowed young Barack the chance of a classic middle class career.

So, the President Elect's background and instincts are thoroughly bourgeois, even down to youthfully helping disadvantaged people in the poor Wards of Chicago.

It is from this springboard, which the mass of Afro-Americans don't have, that he bounced into the White House and which makes him trustworthy to that middle class which dominates and forms Western democracies.

A. MacAulay

Also, James R is right. Palin's "real America" is the land of the free wheelin' six-packers who are not as rascist as their reputation suggests. They are the caste, black and white, from which the US draws its cannon fodder, and whilst the white under class would never mix socially or live in the same neighbourhood as blacks from the same caste, they do respect their fellows, regardless of race, who have served.

Palin appealed to this constituency, black and white, by pointing out that Obama is an elitist wuss.

Incidentally, if any commentator or even satirist picked up on this, I missed it, but isn't it rather odd that Palin played the six pack card when McCain's wife is a brewery heiress?

Mailman

Can anyone point out examples in Obama's political past where he has brought real, positive change to his constituants? You know, something like handing money back to tax payers (TAX PAYERS, not welfare beneficiaries!) or where he voted against his own party for pork barrel expenditure?

Once the kool aid wheres off and the media has run out of excuses to blame Bush for Obama's presidential failings, what people will realise is this guy is the ultimate man who never was.

Perhaps though, the most ironic point of this whole episode is that Martin Luther-King spent his entire life fighting for people to be recognised by the content of their character and deeds of their actions YET Obama's selection by the media as a black man goes completely against everything MLK believed in.

Had the election been based on the content of his character (and links to political corruption, not to mention some VERY questionable personal friendships and acquaintances and the deliberate credit card fraud carried out by his campaign) and the deeds of his actions (his achievements in the senate and particularly as a community organiser, Grove Parc Plaza anyone), then there is no way Obama would have been elected as President.

The only way this guy could get in to office was by playing the race card (or having the media and his lacky's play it for him).

Then again, his election has proven something once and for all. With enough money, you really can buy anything you want.

Mailman

Herbert Thornton

Ed B,

Well that clears that up. I first heard "chotara" used many years ago in Dar es Salaam, by a Tanganyikan and it was quite clear that she meant it somewhat disparagingly.

Unemployed

Excuse me please, what is the
colour of the sky in your world?

Kennybhoy

Corin wrote,

"Or when Putin becomes president and generates a crisis? Or when he realises that Bush's little wars are like small earthquakes, not very nice, but better than the big one?"

Perceptive. I wholeheartedly agree. As I wrote previously over at the lovely Melanie's blog

"Recall that it was Clinton's administration that bombed the embassy of a superpower and ordered British units to fire on Russian airborne forces....

Be afraid folks, be very, VERY afraid...."

PS Lay off Melanie Philips Liddle!

Water

Mwahahah!

Mark Solomon

Time for the Republicans to find a black, female candidate....

She is called Condoleeza Rice and I wished she had been the Republican candidate. Let's hope she bides her time.

While it's great to see Rod epxress all these truths now, they were plainly visible before the election but of course then the journalists couldn't publish anything bad about Obama.

Geraldine Ferraro was clearly correct - if a white man had had a resumé as thin as Obama's he would have been laughed at for running for the nomination. And it was the inverse racism of white people (oh dear must give those blacks a chance, wouldn't it be lovely etc etc) that ensured MORE votes for Obama based on his skin colour and LESS examination or rational criticism.

This election proves just how rascist a country the USA is, and Europe even more so, rather than the contrary unfortunately.

Bob T

Rod, by quibbling over the definition of Obama's blackness I think you conflate two different things. It was of huge historical significance that "a person of color" has been voted President. But his actual very mixed ancestry is a separate issue concerning his instincts and sympathies. Michelle though is 100% Afro-American and both her own stature in itself and it seems with Barak underwrites the belief that he would to "do the right thing" for Afro-America. And much of the rest of the world (including doubtless parts of the BBC) welcomed this implicit message of attonement and reconcilliation on the question of slavery and its legacy. Instead of empty apology a la Blair, US voters have done something real. He was a brilliant candidate, he may or may not be a good President - the point in this case is that a bridge has been crossed. As for the BBC - can't you cut them a bit of slack?