Why is president Obama considered 'black'?

Because he is.

He is biracial, he identifies with black more than white..probably because he looks black. I don’t see why this is so difficult to understand.

brings to mind Dave Chappelle’s Race Draft

haha just saw “Sarcasm is crafting a response…” what a great username;)

re:casheroo

If he called himself ‘white’ people would ridicule him. I am wondering why it would be socially unacceptable to call him ‘white’.

His skin. See, it’s black. Not white.

Well, okay, it’s not as black as a room with no lights, or as black as your font, but as far as skin colors go, that’s black without a doubt.

Because it is obvious that the stronger traits are his black traits. He doesn’t really look white. His tone of skin and his features are more of a black person then that of a white person.

he is a mulatto.

Thought he was yellow…

Black is like 1 in an OR logic gate; it overrides white, which is like 0. (M=mother; F = father; C = child; B = black; W = white).

M F C
W W W
B B B
B W B
W B B

Don’t ask me why, but that seems to be the way it is. I guess because white is white and anything darker than white is not white.

[quoting: DominicX] ‘Don’t ask me why….’

That’s really what I’m wondering. Why is our OR logic gate setup that way?

Colin Powell’s skin is way closer to white than Manute Bol, yet we call both of them ‘black’.

genetics!

Because it’s easier to call biracial people what they look like the most. Why call people that look like me “black” when the label on my foundation bottle says “cappuccino”? lol Nothing like that really makes sense

Calling someone part white and part black “black” is an old hangover from more overtly racist times.

There was something horrible called the “one-drop” role. In 1967, “the U.S. Supreme Court declared such laws unconstitutional, along with the accompanying “one-drop” rule, which held that any person with any African ancestry be considered black.”

It is really only appropriate for multiracial individuals to define their own identities. Technically, President Obama is biracial.

I found this article in the Seattle Times on this topic very interesting.

When are you not considered black? At what persentage?

@jessegavin Have you never seen a very light skinned black person? They receive ridicule from both sides of the spectrum, not accepted by either side. It was a feature on a series called Black in America. I wish I could find a link to it, but I’m having difficulty with it, even if I did find it, I’m betting you still would refuse to listen to reason.

It’s the same for hispanics! My husband is hispanic and I’m white, but our kids have to put hispanic even though they don’t look hispanic.

In this country for over two hundred years there was a “one drop” rule – that is to say, under Jim Crow laws, if you had “one drop” of “Black” blood, you could be legally discriminated against.

We still all suffer from this legacy, but Black people suffer much more than Whites (viz. the Henry Louis Gates fiasco.)

Now the science of genetics has proven for once and for all that there is no such thing as “Race”. It just does not exist. In other words, there is more genetic differentiation within a supposed “racial” group than there is between “racial” groups, and you cannot meaningfully distinguish race by comparing genomes. (Yes, you can distinguish skin color, but that is a clinal variation dependent upon ancestral distance from the Equator.)

So, we are left with stale cultural designations which have no objective meaning, but do have huge social consequences. May we soon catch up with reality.

It really should not matter, but in America it does apparently. I could not care whether he is black, white or whatever. If you are truly not racist, it should be of no consequence. Only when it really does not will true equality be achieved. It is why I am against hyphenating or labeling anyone. Thus the term African American is silly, or hispanic, or white or black or brown. Your skin color means nothing. It is irrelevant to any decision I ever make or consider about anyone or infer any judgments from “what you are”. I prefer to find out “who you are”, not what group you belong to as that inference can be fraught with faulty assessments and fruitless stereotypes. That he was elected, I hope, had nothing to do with his color, he was the best person for the job.

The concept is called hypodescent. What it means is that the mixed-race descendants of two people of different races “must” take the racial identity of the race with lowest social standing. It’s meant to keep the dominant race “pure” (and that the best resources stay with those people).

Unfortunately, if less than 200 years ago, your people were almost all slaves, or were in some other way conquered by the current dominant racial/social class, in the back of the dominant class’s mind, that’s a pretty low standing.

So, regardless of what the law says, people in the United States who appear to have dark skin and/or “African features” are considered black by most Americans. Also, many African-Americans fear the loss of whatever political power that has been gained in the last 40–50 years if people with partial African ancestry do not acknowledge that.

@ShanEnri No one has to put anything in the race column. You can identify yourself however you want. There is only one place I know of where you can officially be assigned to a race: prison. For all the rest, it’s self-identification.

Of course, what you think you are won’t change what others think you are. On the US Census, people can now put as many races and ethnicities as they want to claim. This makes it very difficult to compare the 2000 census with any previous census, when you had to choose only one race (although it was still whatever you wanted to call yourself).

Race is a very silly construct. Can anyone tell me at exactly what shade of skin the barrier between black and white are? Or yellow? Or red?

Race is a social thing that has everything to do with that nexus between what you think you are and what other people think you are. It has nothing to do with any objective standard. Obama is considered black because that’s how he identifies himself (in part), and how others identify him.

@casheroo Is right. I know of a biracial person who looks more white, and people assume she is white. Look at him… he looks much more black than white and by marrying a black woman that also helps people to assume he is black if they don’t know his history. But, what does it matter anyway??? I am sure Pres Obama could care less.

In America, mixed lineage always = black (or whatever the non-white part of you is)

It’s the American Way.

Because his skin is black.

@Ivan looks brown to me

What is the term for a ‘one quarter White person’?, because one exists for a ‘one quarter Black person’. A Quadroon. Look it up!!

@mea05key I would not say someone who is biracial is mulatto. That’s considered a pejorative identification. It comes from the Spanish for mule.So, I’d be careful with that one!

Thanks to @Marina, @pdworkin, @aprilsimnel for helpful and thoughtful answers!

And I don’t think @casheroo quite understands the nature of my question. Otherwise they wouldn’t have accused me of not ‘listening to reason’.

@daloon – Actually, there are a lot of places, such as public schools, where you have to put something in the race column. If you don’t, some “helpful” clerk will put something in for you, based on what they think your race might be. Thus, the school insisted my daughter is white, and my son is black, yet they bear my husband’s last name, which is Japanese.

@jessegavin I’m sorry if you felt I attacked you. I just get sick of this argument over and over, and I assumed you were trying to start something. I didn’t know people still even needed to be told these things.

@aprilsimnel – GA! lurve

@casheroo

I don’t see how it’s something that happens over and over again. A person who is equally black and equally white can only be called one thing, no matter how much white they have in them; it’s not exactly logical. We as a society just decided that there is only one “white” and everything else darker is non-white.

@DominicX No, I’m sick of questions like this about Obama. Did you not live through the 2008 election?

@casheroo

The question says “Obama”, yes, but for me at least it was more about anyone who’s part black and part white.

Because his father, who was black, had more dominant DNA than his mothers’.

50% black + 50% white = 90% black?

I think he actually takes after his mother’s side quite a bit: http://phoenyxblog.tumblr.com/post/153279006/barack-obama-with-his-grandpa

He is Hawaiian you know.

@phoenyx he looks just like his grandfather

@Zendo It is not. It may be your way, but please do not saddle the rest of us with you prejudices.

@Marina They are not my prejudices. they are the prejudices of a great majority of
Americans. I cannot saddle you with anything of which you refuse to be saddled. Only you can allow yourself to be saddled.

Basically, to say that is the American Way is erroneous. The law of the land says it is not the American Way.

T^he law of the land? What law is it that can force people to disregard their inbred prejudices and cause them to become loving people? What law is it that will change the mind of a red-neck, baldknobber, coal miner, hillbilly from joining the KKK and torching crosses on front yards?

@Zendo – No law will change folks minds, but societal mores can make them feel ashamed of feeling that way, or, as has happened to the KKK locally, turn them into laughing stocks.

@Darwin Ahh yes. If only that were true. Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, W.Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, Arizona….and the list of states with members in good standing with the KKK, aryan brotherhood, white supremacy groups just goes on and on…This is not even counting Iowa, Idaho, Oregon, California…and on and on.

@Zendo – It happened down here in southern Texas. The Klan called a rally, and a whole bunch of folks showed up to laugh at them. Only 5 guys showed up to march in the rally. They slunk off muttering something about “never again” and “Dixie is doomed.”

@Darwin BEAUTIFUL!!! I lurve it. If only this would happen worldwide!

I consider him to be smart. On television his skin actually doesn’t look so black to me. More like a light brown. I would not say he’s black. He’s got both a African American and European American heritage.

As with many other Americans, Obama is what he chooses to be. If one is being polite, one would classify him as he chooses to classify himself.

Because no one is interested in an mostly white country if you are white, but if you are anything that looks allot different they care because it means something relative to the “norm”. It’s interesting. If your white friend gets a boy or girlfriend who was mulatto and said they were white it would shock you when you saw they were also half black.

Also, political impactions (more black votes etc.), the fact that he looks black by American standards, pointing out that he isn’t of pure African decent is unnecessary because most African Americans are not (I assume), the term mulatto is out of use, and maybe more reasons.