Reply #67: I'm not about to deny that. [View All]

[LooseWilly]

How he's seen by others is not something his self identification is likely to affect. I'll refrain from beginning a dissertation on the perceptions of cab drivers... but I will point out that a black man in a suit is more likely to get a cab than a black man in baggy, low slung pants, with an oversized white t-shirt and a smile of gold.

If we are now going to dismiss all the shades and nuances that influence perceptions... then I am completely wrong. I was trying to speak to the "shades of grey" that make up the spectrum of "reality". A statistical analysis of perceptions of the country as a whole will undoubtedly agree with you... that if you "look black", then people will respond to you as "black". I'm not disagreeing with that.

On the other hand, in as much as the OP is talking about pundits and the like who focus on the President's "whiteness", I think that, if Obama had been of a mind to do so, he could have likewise focused his self-identification on that "whiteness". I will certainly agree that large swaths of the "white community" would never accept him as part of the "community". On the other hand, there are undoubtedly some others who would be happy to accept him into the "community".

The question I have, then, is... would you judge that "limited community acceptance" as sufficient to make him, de facto "white"? Or is the issue at hand not really about which "community" one chooses to "participate in", but rather how one is perceived by strangers/"society"?

Obviously, if you are taking the latter view... then I am completely wrong. What's more, if we are judging "race" by the latter criterion, then I completely agree with you that I am wrong.