Parsing African-Americanism

[trof]

My friend Arthur is an African-American.
He will tell you so.

He was born to an English Father and a German mother in what was then the British crown colony of Kenya.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya_Colony

In the early 70s he immigrated to the U.S.
He became a U.S. citizen in the late 70s.

Those of us who trace our ancestry back to any number of foreign countries can lay claim to the status of hyphenated Americans.

Me?
I guess I could be a Scottish, English, German, Irish, and/or French-American.
Dealer's choice?
Like our president-elect said today "I'm a mutt."
;-)

And tracing my bloodlines on this continent back to the mid-to late 1600s, in the southern part of what is now the United States of America (I'm a descendant of George Washington's grandfather. Probably, a lot of you are too.), there's a good possibility that I'm part Indian (Indians have told me they prefer that term to 'Native American') and part African too.

Thanks to my work in a local political campaign I have more black friends now than I have ever had before. And I would guess that most of them can trace their roots back to slaves. But I don't hear a single one of them talking about whether or not Barack Obama fits their definition of African-American.

They're just happy.
:-)

[plaintiff]

1. I wish we would just dump that idiotic descriptive. Who the hell would want to be

called African- (is the hyphen significant?...some people think so) -American or any other Continental qualifier? I sure as hell don't want anybody calling me "European-American"...I think it's an insult to my native country and also to my own ethnicity for which I had no influence over anyway. No sane person would or should take "pride" in any aspect of their own identity that wasn't due to their own efforts. How
stupid is it to be "proud" to be (white, black, brown, yellow, left-handed, straight, gay, tall, short, ad nauseum)? Graduate from high school and take some pride for that. Taking pride for an accident of birth is asinine.

[qwlauren35]

2. Au contraire. He doesn't fit at all - but we're okay with it.

Aside from an illegal alien and two kids, Obama has no blood kin in America. His father is from Kenya, not Western Africa, where most of our (African-American) ancestors were enslaved. He was raised in Hawaii, and never knew any of the racism of the 48 continental states other than what some white Hawaiians (including his grandmother) brought with them.
He was raised almost exclusively by white people who claimed him as blood kin.

The connection that exists between Obama and the African-Americans of the continental US is two-fold. The first is the shared reality of how we are perceived, simply because of the color of our skin. It is a daunting thing to realize that no matter who you are, no matter your personality, your dreams, your values, your economic status, the languages you speak, the clothes you wear, the very first thing some people see is your race, and they CANNOT see beyond that to the person you are.

This is the fundamental thing that Obama shares with millions of African-Americans in the continental US. It really has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the people around him.

It is the second thing that speaks to who he is as a person. Obama chose to embrace the African-American community of the continental US, even though he wasn't born into it. He married a woman who was born and raised in the South-side of Chicago. It's gritty. And Michelle is made of sturdy stuff - believe it. He embraced a very racially-conscious black church. He won the trust and respect of Chicagoans - it's not that easy.

So, we're okay with Obama for these two reasons.

Now, some people aren't. REV. JESSE JACKSON IS NEVER GOING TO LIKE BARACK OBAMA. But then, Obama basically called him out for having a child out of wedlock, and Jackson needs to live with his stupid choice. There will be others.

But by and large, our community is, above all, American, and we see what everyone else sees. Before we see Obama's insides, we see his outside. And many in the African American community embrace him for it.

I am an anomaly because I refused to choose him on the basis of his color. I'm certainly not alone in this. There are plenty of us who were so sold on the Clintons that we had no interest in Obama... until we got to know him. (I was for Richardson, m'self.) I chose Obama based on his character and convictions.

But I won't pretend that plenty chose him because of the color of his skin.

So, yes, we know that he was not born as we were, he does not come from where we come from, he was not raised as we were raised. But we're okay with it, because of what he looks like, and which community he chose for his home.

[Ecumenist]

3. Amen, QWLauren35..Amen.

I told someone else on an earlier thread that not all of us are descendants of Black slaves exclusively. Many of my black ancestors in my maternal bloodline emigrated here from north Africa at the end of the 19th Century. There was a sizeable population of free blacks in early America too. I also have to admit that Obama wasn't my first choice and I didn't vote for him SIMPLY because he looks like me anymore than the average white votes for any other president. That he happens to me blessed with more melanin than any other president before him makes no more intelligent, articulate or eloquent than any other candidate. He just happened to be , after the dust up of the primaries, the most capable and shared a philosophical view with me and most of the voting populus.

Frankly, I'm delighted that he can speak the language without mangling every other syllable.

[kwassa]

4. wonderful post., great summing up of his appeal

"So, yes, we know that he was not born as we were, he does not come from where we come from, he was not raised as we were raised. But we're okay with it, because of what he looks like, and which community he chose for his home."

[kwassa]

5. dupe