Why is Barach Obama called "an African-American" president when he is Irish-American, father African, but never an American citizen. He is not the "first African-American POTUS" he is the first Irish-American with African father. (2009-10-08)

Sigh....,

My friend your question is part of the most frustrating aspects of racial dialogue in Western Civilization. When Blacks attempt to discuss the "olden days" or the history of racism many of our White brethren shy away from it and to a point that is understandable, it is not a comfortable discussion. Nonetheless these things should be discussed and taught to each generation as we do with any good aspect of our cultural histories. Having avoided these discussions under the auspices of "the past is the past, lets get over" you find your selves questioning things in the present that would be understood if you paid attention to the past.

Barack Obama is often called Black or African American in our American culture because in over 200 years of official history and nearly 400 years including colonial, our Nation/Civilization has recognized and used the "One Drop" rule or some derivative. The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry; it is an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status.

Think about it, the very fact that we call the two races "White and Black" characterize how we view the mixture of the two. If you add white in any aspect to anything black or dark you get a slightly lighter version of dark or black. If you add black to anything described as white you get black or something darker, you don't get white. Because of this simplistic observation and racist views of supremacy in the past, a black and white coupling equaled a black person.

Liberals did not come up with this, Blacks did not come up with this, CNN and NPR did not come up with this; Whites did. Failing to understand this can only come from failing to understand your complete history, not just the fun and cool stuff but the difficult to look at stuff.

Finally I offer this hypothetical test. If Barack Obama the door to door insurance salesman, not President or even Senator, just Barack-the-insurance-dude-Obama, came knocking at your door would you say?

a. Honey there is a black dude at our door.
b. Honey there is a half white half black guy at our door.
c. Honey there is a white guy at our door.

I will wager you would use a. As would most of our country regardless of race. In South Africa he would be called "Colored", not to be confused with our American version of "colored". In our country he is considered Black.

I hope this helps, and please know that I harbor no animus for your race or any other race. We all look the way we do as a result of comming out of our mothers, we had shit diddly to do with it. It makes no sense to overly proud of it or ashamed of it.

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Why is Barach Obama called "an African-American" president when he is Irish-American, father African, but never an American citizen. He is not the "first African-American POTUS" he is the first Irish-American with African father. (2009-10-08)

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