'Black' Hussein Obama

I’ve put off writing this piece for some time. But it has come to the point that it needs to be said.

I’ve said any number of times that if Obama had been a half-a-Kenyan with blue eyes and light brown hair, Hillary would have won the Democrat presidential nod, and in all probability, the presidential election.

I have done many on-air interviews that discussed his being a “black man.” And while I am no broad-smiling encomiast pursuant to there being a color in the White House, and while I am quick to point out my contempt for color-coded anything — I will say if we are to believe Barack Obama, Sr. is his father, that makes Obama, Jr. more African-American than the majority of Americans of color claiming said assignation.

What I cannot abide are comments made by people who castigate him for saying he is black, even if, as I indicated, it would be more ethnically correct if he said he were African. My point is that Obama has every right to self-identify as black, and it doesn’t matter what color his mother was. And it sure as heck doesn’t matter if he is a mutt who like the majority of the people in the world are a combination of different ethnicities.

Looking at me, people would be hard pressed to know that my mother was Indian (of some derivation), white, and black. Looking at my grandmother, one would be inclined to think she was Indian (oh, I’m being politically incorrect; excuse me, make that Native American) before they took her for being black. Most of my cousins on my late mother’s side of the family, including those my age, are very light skinned. I took after my father who was very dark, but I could have just as easily taken more of the external traits of my mother’s family and been lighter.

That said, my cousins all self-identify as black. I identify myself as an American because I place nationality over ethnicity and understand the importance for same.

I find a distasteful level of ugliness by those who argue Obama is somehow being less than forthcoming to self-identify as black. He is not. It is his choice. My complaint is that he doesn’t view himself as an American more than he values his ability to prostitute his skin color for gain and/or as a bludgeon to force acceptance of his policies.

Many years ago, and I regret that I have lost the file with the person’s name and exact information he shared, a psychologist I spoke with at length informed me that a child has the right to self-identify.

Tiger Woods has made it very clear that he believes identifying himself singularly as black would be an insult to his mother, and I agree.

Other children who share different ethnicities tend to self-identify with the ethnicity that is most observable. There is nothing wrong with that. I do, however, believe it is wrong to force a child to identify with the dominant observable ethnicity based on a familial mandate.

Children should be taught to feel comfortable as Americans in their own skin. The lists of things to criticize Obama for are legion. His choosing to identify himself as black, I argue, should not be one of them. His refusal to recognize America as a great nation should be.

Skin color divides us because we encourage and allow it to. Race-mongers make gain of it, and still others allow themselves to be inculcated into seeing ethnicity before nationality.

Obama is a mutt just like most of us. How he self-identifies is not the issue and we must not allow ourselves to use same as an instrument of hate for him. The fact that he is committed to fundamentally transmogrifying our country into a socialist state, however, is another thing altogether.