Barack Obama is white...

[rateyes]

and black.

I've got a father who is a closet racist (and, I've got the stories to prove it. For example, he's a Clinton supporter and he said to me, an Obama supporter---you can't criticize that n**ger because people will call you a racist!--Think on that one). My dad cannot conceive the notion that Barack Obama is as much "white" as he is "black" (biologically speaking).

He thinks like this: A person with a black father and a white mother is black. Or, to put it another way, he thinks that any amount of "black blood" makes one "black," but any amount of "white blood" can't make a black person "white."

I was talking to him the other day about Obama when he kept talking about how one can't criticize Obama because he's black. That's when I hit him square in the face with, "Obama's white." I've seen pictures of his mother, and she has white skin. He comes back with, "the blood comes from the father," (a theological notion amongst some fundy Christians because of the "blood shed on the cross" having to be "God's blood" and not Mary's. :crazy:) I pointed out the scientific idiocy of that statement, but he can't accept that.

So, I countered with "Well then, if Obama's father had been white, and his mother black, I guess Obama would be white, right? He couldn't agree to that one either. All he could say was, "Look at him, he's black." I answered, "His skin color looks "brown" to me.

I say all of that to say this: The number of white folk in this country who think like my dad is legion. While they would never admit it, their thinking is that "white" is pure, and "black" is not. Therefore, any person with a white and a black parent is in some way "impure." I heard a white guy here in GA talking about Tiger Woods (part black, part Asian) say about Tiger's wife that she is gorgeous, but, because she has had sex with Tiger she is now "damaged goods." The guy is 45 years old.

If anyone has the notion that "white racism" is not a problem in society anymore, that person is not paying attention. And, in my humble opinion, Hillary--by not saying how unfair it is to try and damage Barack's reputation by attributing the most outlandish remarks of Rev. Wright to Barack, but rather trying to benefit from it--is playing good politics, to be sure. But, she is also proving, in my opinion, that she lacks the character to stand up against the blatant racism that infects our society.

Rev. Wright does not speak for all black people, nor for the entire black church, and neither does Obama, in the same way that Hillary Clinton does not speak for all white women.

Rev. Wright is Rev. Wright. Barack Obama is Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton. John McCain is John McCain. And, ALL of them should be judged, to steal a line from Dr. King, by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, their gender, their age, their sexual orientation, etc.

I had to point out to my father, once again, that all blood is red, and we all can receive transfusions of that blood from people of different races. For after all, in the end, we all belong to the same race. It's called the human race.

[cali]

1. Another great post, rat

you get a k&r from me, but I'll still never forgive you for pounding on Pat.

:P

[rateyes]

4. I like Pat,

but he was wrong to cave on Mukasey. :P Thanks, cali. :hi:

[kentuck]

2. It could be argued that any person that hates Obama because of race..

in reality, hate themselves.

[rateyes]

6. Yep. Could be. nt

[scheming daemons]

3. Is your last name Bunker?

Seriously.... Your dad is freaking Archie Bunker.

[rateyes]

5. No, not Bunker,

but not far off. My Dad is Archie's cousin from his mother's side of the family. :rofl:

[demwing]

7. No one is white. No one is black.

If, in some sci-fi future, an alien race visited this planet and tried to describe our color, I am sure we would be known as a planet of brown people.

Some are dark brown, some are pale brown. Some are just plain old brown.

I wonder if it would be inconceivable to a truly objective observer that so much hatred and violence has come as a result of humans trying to box each other up into good and bad shades of the same color?

[rateyes]

Good point.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

8. You should have a DNA test to see if you have any black ancestors

Many people in the U.S. who identify as "white" have black ancestors without even realizing it. If you could show your dad that he is part black, you could just stand back and watch his head spin. ;)

[rateyes]

11. That would be something to watch.

:hi:

[BadgerKid]

20. A related article...

http://www.isteve.com/2002_How_White_Are_Blacks.htm

Some of the things were mentioned elsewhere under your OP.

[grace0418]

9. Great post rateyes. And no offense, but it doesn't sound like your dad is a closet racist.

He sounds full-blown. And how sad.

Thank goodness you are able to see the truth.

[rateyes]

12. Nah. He really is an Archie Bunker type. He doesn't see

his own racism, just like most of us.

[uponit7771]

10. They racist Hill supporters might be legion but I don't see them being prevalent....

...they might be even visible but the vast majority of dems IMHO could care less.

[rateyes]

14. I would never say that all Clinton supporter's are racist...

just like I would never say that those who oppose her are all sexists. I'm simply saying that there are a lot of people who pretend they aren't voting on skin color, gender, age, when in reality, they are. (Or, at least, it's a big factor for them.)

[aquart]

15. "Legion" but not "prevalent"?

Whatever.

[demwing]

13. Clayton Bigsby - the Black White Supremacist

http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/291638/clayton_bigsby.swf

[leftynyc]

16. Do you mind me asking

where your father is from (I'm speaking geographically)?

[rateyes]

21. East Tennessee. nt

[suston96]

17. Uh, where we all came from........

http://www.amonhotep.com/2002/realeve.html

The Real Eve Out of Africa

Eve Explained, www.dsc.discovery.com:
How Ancient Humans Spread Across the Earth
By William F. Allman

The Real Eve (2002) DVDThe greatest journey ever undertaken left behind a trail of unanswered questions: How did our species arise and spread around the globe to become the most dominant creature on the planet? Part of the answer came two decades ago, when scientists stunned the world with the finding, based on genetic research, that all humans alive today can claim as a common ancestor a woman who lived in Africa some 150,000 years ago ? dubbed, inevitably, "Eve." But while the notion of an African origin of the human family has grown to be accepted by most scientists, the details of how Eve's ancestors swept out of Africa to populate the rest of the world have remained murky.

The Discovery Channel's 2 hour presentation was stunning.

[wowimthere]

18. Great story... of which there are many but truth about this will eventually prevail

Our generation is wiser than the one before it. I don't know how anyone came up with the rationales for black blood and white blood and mixed blood. The lunacy of conservative ideas reaches into the democratic party. It's the Archy Bunker mentality and I'm so glad it's dying out.

[nichomachus]

19. It's a matter of history

In the late 1800s, many states had laws determining race. Many operated on a fractional basis. If your blood was one-sixteenth black or one-thirty second, you were black. But shortly after the turn of the century, in the early 1900s, southern states began adopting what they called the "one drop" rule. One drop of black blood made you black. Within a few years, almost all states followed the one-drop rule, even if they had fractional rules in place earlier.

We still suffer from that insanity.

Here is an excellent discussion on how the US practically invented "the white race."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Xe1kX7Wsc