On 13-7-2009 18:34, Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Interestingly enough, there were a number of black pundits and spokespeople 
>> claiming Barak Obama isn't black because his African parent was actually 
>> born in Africa or something.  Basically, his ancestors were never slaves, so 
>> he isn't really an African-American.
> 
>   How does that make any sense?

Some derive their sense of pride from the fact that someone in their 
ancestry was a slave and blame every failure of themselves* on those 
that have the same 'color' as the one time owners of slaves**. If you do 
that and claim 'compensation' for something somebody did 2 centuries ago 
against somebody that might have been a family member of an ancestor, it 
is important to give your group a name, say 'black', and prevent as many 
others as possible to join that group. In short, this logic only makes 
sense if you believe that black people are actually (morally) superior 
to the other races.

The main point of course is that if someone is claiming Obama is any 
color at all and that that is relevant, is that the person who does it 
is a racist. He/she/it is not judging a person by what he does and has 
done, but by a superficial characteristic that is irrelevant for the job.

I am not totally familiar with US history, but I think that most (all?) 
presidents before him were from an upper middle class background. 
Perhaps that is even a bigger change than the 'color' issue, or am I now 
guilty of being an economist?

* which does not mean that racism does not play a role in many problems 
of 'black' people.
**irrespective of that person's ancestors having been in the US at the 
time and of their status at that time. Most were of course too poor to 
afford slaves.

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