The rec list has been dominated by the rebuttal of Cornel West statements about President Obama. This particular statement got me thinking...
I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West says. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening. And that’s true for a white brother. When you get a white brother who meets a free, independent black man, they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them. It’s a tension, given the history. It can be overcome. Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable.
I am also bi-racial like Obama. I have a African-American father and a white mother. I was raised by two white parents (due to adoption) in a white neighborhood. I look bi-racial, meaning that I have light brown skin. However, I have never (and I am assuming the same for President Obama) been mistaken for white. Puerto Rican when in New York but never white.
I take exception to Cornel West's statement. He seems to think that by being bi-racial, we don't have the same experience as any other black person. There are those bi-racial children that "pass". Passing by Nella Larsen is one of my favorite books. However neither President Obama or I could pass.
Instead both of us have lived a life where we are judged by our skin color. Yes, we both are "articulate" and well-educated but we both are always going be judged by the tone of our skin.
There is no magical Biracial pass. We don't get a secret handshake from others or admittance into some special club. When I got into college, my best friend stated it was due to affirmative action. Not because I was an A student, on student council and played three sports. Obama graduated magna cum laude and he has Donald Trump yelling about affirmative action.
Heck, Obama's own lily white mother couldn't stop the birthers from claiming he was an illegal immigrant.
The Bi-racial experience is a strange one. I think there is truth to the one drop rule. I would get strange looks if I claimed that I was white but not an eye is batted when I say I am black.
I think I am somewhere in the middle. I understand and appreciate my white mother and her culture. I have recently been on a quest to better understand that side of me. I do understand that to the outside world I am a black woman and that makes me proud. I think that I am great representative of black women.
I am educated, married, smart, beautiful and happy. The same as any other woman in any other race.
I recently had the whitest baby you have ever seen. It has made me rethink what I consider racial identity. My child is bi-racial but to the outside world, he is a white baby. Sure he look just like me but to the passing stranger, I am his nanny. Will he appreciate the black side of him? Is black identity strongly rooted in your skin tone? I don't know the answers to these questions but I do know this:
Cornel West has no right to question anyone else "blackness" or cultural experience. It's a personal journey that sometimes defies standard thinking. President Obama considers himself a black man and that is good enough for me.