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Black Agenda Report

Obama Isn’t Black?? Part 1

Originally posted by Nadir at LastChocolateCity.com

Let me start by saying that I am not sipping the Barack Obama Kool-Aid. I agree with Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report who calls the junior Senator from Illinois “…an imperialist at heart who offers George Bush at least another year or two to wage war in Iraq, while warning Iraqis that they can expect no more American ‘coddling’”.

But when people like Debra Dickerson say “Obama isn’t Black”, it just confuses the issue.

According to Dickerson’s Jan. 22 article on Salon.com:

“Black,” in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent with markedly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and in politics. At a minimum, it can’t be assumed that a Nigerian cabdriver and a third-generation Harlemite have more in common than the fact a cop won’t bother to make the distinction. They’re both “black” as a matter of skin color and DNA, but only the Harlemite, for better or worse, is politically and culturally Black, as we use the term.

Hogwash. Continue reading

Obama Isn’t Black?? Part 1

Originally posted by Nadir at LastChocolateCity.com

Let me start by saying that I am not sipping the Barack Obama Kool-Aid. I agree with Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report who calls the junior Senator from Illinois “…an imperialist at heart who offers George Bush at least another year or two to wage war in Iraq, while warning Iraqis that they can expect no more American ‘coddling’”.

But when people like Debra Dickerson say “Obama isn’t Black”, it just confuses the issue.

According to Dickerson’s Jan. 22 article on Salon.com:

“Black,” in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent with markedly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and in politics. At a minimum, it can’t be assumed that a Nigerian cabdriver and a third-generation Harlemite have more in common than the fact a cop won’t bother to make the distinction. They’re both “black” as a matter of skin color and DNA, but only the Harlemite, for better or worse, is politically and culturally Black, as we use the term.

Hogwash. Continue reading

© Nadir Omowale