The boy says otherwise.

Oops! I take your point. I trust you know me well enough to realise that that was not intentionally racist. Still, thanks for the heads up.

“And. one of the whitest states in the Union thought otherwise?”

Thought he wasn’t black, or that being black does not matter? We are talking about different things, douglas. I am talking about why Obama being of mixed-race is considered black in the US (#16), and you are talking about culture, race and politics wars. We agree that Obama is above that, and that is why he is doing much better than previous black candidates.

“The boy says otherwise.”

Before you get in trouble when you start debating in US forums, you should know that ‘boy’ was used as a slur to blacks in the South.

I feel you and I could stand side to side on a Democratic forum, and the bad folk could not tell us apart.

I do not think your true fact, is, in fact a true fact.

Douglas: I was not giving you my opinion, but a fact. The reason why Obama is considered black in the US is because historically that is the way people assume their racial identity: the one-drop rule. Have you actually read the article? I have said before that I find such classifications to be simplistic, specially when it comes to Obama who has a white mother and a black father.

And. one of the whitest states in the Union thought otherwise? Frankly, this is a defining moment. This is the fucking point. You may think that politics could or should be defined by skin colour or religion, or race. The boy says otherwise.

I don’t understand what you are saying Douglas.
It’s obviously a matter of opinion. She got lucky with the Falklands but she was clearly liked by a lot of people and undeniably changed the country (and arguably arrested 50 years of decline).
I hated Mrs T when she was in power, but history will judge her to be one of the greatest PMs ever. She was certainly a woman. We’re just going to have to accept that Douglas. But I digress.

“I am arguing that that is untrue.”

Douglas: I was not giving you my opinion, but a fact. The reason why Obama is considered black in the US is because historically that is the way people assume their racial identity: the one-drop rule. Have you actually read the article? I have said before that I find such classifications to be simplistic, specially when it comes to Obama who has a white mother and a black father.

Explaining you why he has assumed an identity within a historical context, does not mean I condone it – and certainly does not mean I support culture wars, or whatever you meant by that.

You said this:

Obama is an interesting case because not only is he mixed-race, he also isn’t the offspring of imported African slaves and so isn’t even representative of the main black american tribe. I’m warming to him and I recognise the significance of his skin colour. It would be a powerful and positive message in the war against terror and religious fanaticism if the leader of the free world was demonstrably not white. But I look forward to the day when people can look back on it with the same indifference as we do Mrs Thatcher — Britain’s first female PM.
I also find constant references to his skin colour irrelevent, tiresome and ultimately unhelpful. Don’t turn this into a dumb race vote. Gary Younge, I’m talking to you.
News that Obama IS America’s first black US president would be a lot more interesting than news he COULD become America’s first US president.

Whilst I agree with you that electing a person due to their sex or colour is a piece of shit, it is perhaps worthwhile electing someone independent of their race or sex? Obama seems to pass that test, whereas Thatcher never did.

Dunno. Maybe you could explain this.

This has to do with the one-drop rule in the US and UK: if you have black blood, then you are black. In Brazil, it is the opposite: if you have white blood and light skin, you are white, no matter if you share other features with black people.

I am arguing that that is untrue. In the UK at least. We are, frankly a mixed up genotype, least that is what I think I know from the evidence. I’d imagine the USA was even more of a mixture.

Thank God someone else sees Barak Obama as a positive force. Whatever our differences, I’d like you and me to ‘hing together’ on our common cause.

Go, Barak, go!

“Thanks for the reply, although you do seem embraced with the culture wars, so you do.”

That is really news to me, douglas. Why do you say that?

“What is perhaps reasonably new is that Barak Obama might, just might, be a healer in the culture game?”

I thought that was my point in #18 in the second paragraph. You know, where I start with “What is new?”.

Thanks for the reply, although you do seem embraced with the culture wars, so you do.

But that is a shite idea, is it not?

What is perhaps reasonably new is that Barak Obama might, just might, be a healer in the culture game?

Obama is an interesting case because not only is he mixed-race, he also isn’t the offspring of imported African slaves and so isn’t even representative of the main black american tribe. I’m warming to him and I recognise the significance of his skin colour. It would be a powerful and positive message in the war against terror and religious fanaticism if the leader of the free world was demonstrably not white. But I look forward to the day when people can look back on it with the same indifference as we do Mrs Thatcher — Britain’s first female PM.
I also find constant references to his skin colour irrelevent, tiresome and ultimately unhelpful. Don’t turn this into a dumb race vote. Gary Younge, I’m talking to you.
News that Obama IS America’s first black US president would be a lot more interesting than news he COULD become America’s first US president.

Douglas: Your talking to the converted, I was merely pointing out baracks dual heritage, and how people we see as black are in fact mixed race

This has to do with the one-drop rule in the US and UK: if you have black blood, then you are black. In Brazil, it is the opposite: if you have white blood and light skin, you are white, no matter if you share other features with black people.

What is new? I am not convinced that TV shows and movies had an impact on accepting a “black” man. Obama is very different from other black candidates in the past: Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Both of which have been unable to operate outside ‘black’ and ‘race’ politics.

The way it usually works is if you like someone, you stress the identities you have in common, if you dislike them, you focus on the others.

So somone voting for Alesha on Stictly Come Dancing could identify her as black, British, English, working class, a Londoner, whichever.

Someone voting against Obama in the US elections would tend to regard him as Kenyan, an academic, a politician, or whatever else they were not.

If you have enough identities available to you, you can can do something almost indistinguishable from making your own mind up.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/dec/12/television.digitaltvradio

…..Of course, there’s another sad truth at the heart of Keysgate and the switch to high definition – if HDTV shows up all the little differences we have, it will inevitably, given the world we live in, encourage a move to bland uniformity. “I’ve got freckles and I could spend hours disguising them, but I don’t want to,” says Frostrup. “However, it’s the opposite attitude that is now rife throughout HD. That airbrush guarantees a flawless American news-anchor face on every single presenter. But I don’t want everyone on my TV to look like a flawless American news anchor.”

I’d have thought that being ‘mixed race’, openly and honestly about it, plays in his favour. There are very few folk, these days, that are not ‘mixed race’. Even the isolated folk of the Western Isles of Scotland have traces of Spanish blood.

(Challenge for Rumbold, why? Or is that too easy?)

Indianoguy,

I recognise the concerns over at:

http://www.groupnewsblog.net/2008/01/pride-and-palpitations.html

And I’d hope the hell the Secret Service were taking those worries seriously. If Barak Obama were to be assassinated all hell would break loose.

But then, some Yanks believe in guns, not debate. It has always struck me as unbelievable that Reagan took a bullet and then stood with the NRA. Such is the insanity that passes for politics in the USA.