I’m sorry, but I really don’t get it. Sure Obama seems like a nice guy, and he talks well, but why the hysteria over someone with almost no experience and no track record? Somone said to me recently, “Well he’s got to be better than Bush”. Why? How could you possibly know that? Has he faced anything yet, let alone something of the magnitude of the Twin Towers. No.
There is the race thing, though. And that’s where things get interesting. Some people refer to Obama as a Black American, some as an African-American, and some as a mixed-race American. He famously referred to himself as a “mutt”, when comparing himself to the type of dog he may get for his children. So which is it?
Well, his biological father was a black African from Kenya, his mother was a white American, he had an Indonesian stepfather for a while, and he was raised for much of his life by his white American grandparents. So it’s not at all clear he is a Black American or an African American. This only follows if his mother’s race counts for nothing, if the dominance and importance of one race so outweighs another race that it doesn’t come into consideration. But isn’t that racism?
I used to think about this when watching James Blake, the top ten tennis player. The commentators would talk about his achievemenst as an African-American tennis player, and comapre him to Arthur Ashe. But every so often the camera would show his white mother, sitting in the stand. What does that mean for her? Was she just a vessel for passing on the African-American race? Does she mean nothing to his heredity? Do her genes contribute nothing? Isn’t that racism?
As things stand, if James were to marry his white girlfriend (my apologies if they’ve now split up, but the point rermains), their children would be African-Americans too. That’s how the system works. Because “the system” is based on the concept of “a single drop of blood”. It’s a concept with a bad history. Slave owners used this to ensure the illegitimate children of white plantation owners and Black slaves had no rights: just one drop of blood and you are tainted (see Lawrence Wright, “One drop of blood”, The New Yorker, July 24, 1994 on this). The Nazis used this concept to classify Jews: just one drop of Jewish blood and you are a Jew, and forfeit all your rights to property, freedom and life.
Of course, any oppressed people thrown together as the result of this sort of discrimination will tend to associate and sympathise with each other, and this is what happened with creoles, mulattos and all other classifications of mixed-race people. But that doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t mean that anyone with a great grandparent who was Black is Black, or ought to be thought of as Black, or ought to see themselves as Black.
A number of commentators have seen in Obama the chance to do away with racial and racist viewpoints and see him as a coming togther of peoples and races, a symbol of harmony in a world that is overly obsessed with difference. But Black America doesn’t want to see its final triumph diluted in this way: at last we have a Black president, and woe betide anyone who wants to say he’s not Black. And liberal White America is just as fervent in its desire to see Obama as Black, because it means they can say to the world, “See, we vote for Black people, we’re absolved of our sins”.
In New Zealand racial classification is based on choice. People can select their ethnicity. Well, that’s what everyone thinks anyway. In fact many government institutions employ what is called “prioritised ethnicity”. What this means is that if on a form asking for the ethnic groups you belong to you write “Pakeha” or “White New Zealander” and “Maori”, in all subsequent statistics and policy you will be treated as a Maori. Statistics New Zealand recently abandoned this policy, but it is still very common in papers produced by government departments and academic institutions.
Similarly, if you write “Samoan” and “Maori” you will be treated as a Maori. This is because there is a priorised list of races, with Maori at the top and Pakeha/Other at the bottom. I know it sounds bizarre, and racist, but it was done with the best intentions, in terms of distributing social welfare. Believe it or not there is also an “ever” concept often used. This means that if, on any official form you have filled out at any stage of your life, you put “Maori” and “Pakeha”, even if for the rest of your life you just put “Pakeha” you will be treated as Maori under the “ever Maori” concept.
Why would someone change their mind about something like this? Well, according to the reasoning of Statistics New Zealand, the important thing is the ethnic group (or groups) you associate with. So presumably one can change one’s mind, or become clearer about which ethnicity you feel you belong to. So is there a free choice? Can we choose our ethnicity? Hardly.
Imagine Obama stating to the nation that because of his upbringing he associates more with his White background so he wants to be known as a White person. Does that sound weird, offensive, disgusting? In fact it’s just the other side of the same coin. You utterly reject one race in favour of another. Not only Black America but the politically correct world would be shocked: How can you reject your Black ancestry? Well, how can you reject your White ancestry?
This sort of things happens on an everyday basis too. Someone I know went for an interview to become a primary teacher. She has a White mother and a Maori father. During the interview she admitted that for a number of reasons, including the fact that she had been brought up by her White mother and hardly seen her father, she didn’t really see herself as a Maori and associates more with White New Zealanders. The result was shock, anger, a stern lecture, and the possibility of having missed out on the job.
It seems there is no choice. A single drop of blood and you are tainted, or blessed, whichever way you look at it. White genes are at best something to be ignored, at worst an embarssment that condemns you to being “not brown/black enough”.
Obama should not be seen as a symbol, a member of a slave race finally ruling the country, or as a redemption for White liberals. He should be seen as a mixed-race president, a wonderful coming together of races and countries in one man. And he should not be lauded just because he’s not white, or because he’s not George W Bush. He should be given a chance to achieve something, rather than being set up to fail because of the absurd, distorted expectations generated by Obama hysteria.
Boethius 2