4 ms·

It may be that his heritage is even more white than black because he was raised by his white mother without his black father.

by delinka 15y ago

atonse 15y ago
Unfortunately I don't have a source for this, but it happened during the 2008 election: When someone asked Obama why he would consider himself the potential first black President rather than the first mixed race President, he said (paraphrasing) "If I was waiting to catch a cab in NYC late night in a bad neighborhood, the cabbie won't think 'there's a mixed race man waiting to catch a cab', he'll think 'there's a black man waiting to catch a cab'" I think that was well put. Even if you are of mixed race, it's how you are perceived when people make their initial assumptions that matters most in the context of these discussions.
- vidarh 15y ago
  My son is mixed; I'm white. Part of the discussion my wife and I had before having kids is about how mixed children are seen. They get the worst of both. People who look down on black, consider them black (that does not mean everyone who'd call them black are racist, but that racists while grasp at the "one drop" pretty much immediately). Often if they try to define themselves as white they get it from both sides - a lot of black people see them as "traitors", a lot of white people assume they're ashamed of their black heritage and look down on them for that, or in the case of racists often take offense at it. And if they try to define themselves as black, there are people that have issue with that too, grasping at anything to write them off as "not black enough". So for him, I guess part of it is that being "black" is still more convenient than being mixed race at the same time that when dealing with somewhat racist white people, trying to insist you're white or mixed when you look a bit darker than them will just make it far less likely that they'll give you any kind of respect. If he'd called himself white or mixed, I don't think there's any chance he'd have gotten elected - the entire election campaign would've been massively marred by a focus on race far beyond what it was, and I think it'd have lost him votes from both whites and blacks.

It may be that his heritage is even more white than black because he was raised by his white mother without his black father.

by delinka 15y ago

It may be that his heritage is even more white than black because he was raised by his white mother without his black father.

atonse 15y ago

Unfortunately I don't have a source for this, but it happened during the 2008 election: When someone asked Obama why he would consider himself the potential first black President rather than the first mixed race President, he said (paraphrasing) "If I was waiting to catch a cab in NYC late night in a bad neighborhood, the cabbie won't think 'there's a mixed race man waiting to catch a cab', he'll think 'there's a black man waiting to catch a cab'" I think that was well put. Even if you are of mixed race, it's how you are perceived when people make their initial assumptions that matters most in the context of these discussions.

vidarh 15y ago
My son is mixed; I'm white. Part of the discussion my wife and I had before having kids is about how mixed children are seen. They get the worst of both. People who look down on black, consider them black (that does not mean everyone who'd call them black are racist, but that racists while grasp at the "one drop" pretty much immediately). Often if they try to define themselves as white they get it from both sides - a lot of black people see them as "traitors", a lot of white people assume they're ashamed of their black heritage and look down on them for that, or in the case of racists often take offense at it. And if they try to define themselves as black, there are people that have issue with that too, grasping at anything to write them off as "not black enough". So for him, I guess part of it is that being "black" is still more convenient than being mixed race at the same time that when dealing with somewhat racist white people, trying to insist you're white or mixed when you look a bit darker than them will just make it far less likely that they'll give you any kind of respect. If he'd called himself white or mixed, I don't think there's any chance he'd have gotten elected - the entire election campaign would've been massively marred by a focus on race far beyond what it was, and I think it'd have lost him votes from both whites and blacks.