The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/7/09 Section: Opinions

CHRIS SHIRLEY [Click to enlarge]

I do not deny that electing Barack Obama was historic - even if I deny he is black, he is still the first half-black president. As a hilarious motivational from eBaum's World says, below a grid of presidential caricatures, "C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!"

But still, it has to be said, he is not black. He is not white. He is mixed. And it doesn't matter.

I tried to ignore the mania that ensued during his election. Not the mania that had to do with Obama being able to fulfill his promises - I hoped very much that he would fulfill many of them, but the mania that centered on his race.

It popped up again the other day, talking to an old white woman, happy that America elected a black man. That's why I finally had to write this.

White liberals are obsessing over how not racist they are for voting for a black guy. Black liberals are obsessing over how great it is a black guy is finally in office.

Both of these attitudes are the result of a one-drop rule mentality. A cursory overview of other cultures shows family relations and views on bloodlines are to some extent arbitrary and cultural. That's fine.

But is the one-drop rule really the kind of principle we want to adopt?

The one-drop rule is the most racist idea we possibly could choose to guide our attitudes. It implies that races are naturally separate, not intended to mix, and that a single drop, literally, will effectively poison an otherwise pure pedigree.

Calling Obama black furthers this racist attitude, consciously or not, by shunning him from half his heritage.

If all this seems a bit contrived, try to imagine the reverse. What if it was white people who were in the minority and mixed-race individuals such as Obama were automatically white?

What if the same individual, Obama, was president, but it was black liberals who were so proud of themselves for electing a white man? Now does it seem ridiculous and latently racist?

Obama's election was historic, but its racial component was not that he is black, but that he is not all-white. For this reason, it is understandable for non-whites, particularly those who personally suffered under Jim Crow, to be ecstatic.

But it is still unwise to promote a racist relic from that time period in celebrating it. By all means, say that the election of a mixed-race individual represents progress and hope for political, not just social, integration of non-whites. But leave Jim Crow and his views on miscegenation in the past.

Much more importantly, Obama's election was historic because it was a definitive close on the supremacy of a neoconservative ideology that reigned, to varying degrees, since the Reagan Revolution.

It signaled a change of strategy in two ground wars and one global one, and represented an opportunity for the civil rights of all Americans, so trampled on during the Bush years, to be restored.

When we remember Obama's election, let us try to remember something more significant than his color, whether we believe in the sincerity or the soundness of his promises.

And when we do remember his color, let's at least get it right.

A couple at Atlanta's StarBar hit the truth a few weeks ago. A black girl screamed, "My president's black!" The white comedian on at the moment responded, without missing a beat, "And my president's white!"

- Chris Shirley is a senior from Douglasville majoring in history.

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