Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Jenice Armstrong | Infuriating question won't die

"IS HE BLACK enough?" It's an infuriating question, and one that has dogged Sen. Barack Obama since long before he entered the 2008 presidential race.

"IS HE BLACK enough?"

It's an infuriating question, and one that has dogged Sen. Barack Obama since long before he entered the 2008 presidential race.

The question doesn't even make sense when you think about it. After all, what does it mean to be African-American, anyway? And since when has it been necessary to be of a certain hue and to have been a descendant of American slaves to qualify for full membership in the black community?

But with Obama, D-Ill., some folks just can't seem to get over the fact that Obama's mother was white and his father a black Kenyan. The product of a multicultural background, he lived briefly in Indonesia, the home of his stepfather, before going off to Columbia University and Harvard Law School.

Despite Obama's repeated attempts to deal with this so-called issue and his recent quip about not being able to catch a taxicab in New York City because of his skin color, the question persists. Last week, Obama got a chance to face some of his presumed questioners on this issue when he spoke to the National Association of Black Journalists in Las Vegas.

He began by apologizing for arriving late.

"But you guys keep on asking if I'm black enough . . . [so] I figured I'd stroll in," Obama said in a joking reference to the stereotype about African-Americans showing up late.

The roughly 2,000 reporters, columnists and editors in attendance burst into laughter.

After addressing his standard campaign issues such as illegal immigration, the working poor and foreign policy, Obama once again tried to allay fears as to whether he was black enough to appeal to a wide swath of African-American voters.

"We should ask ourselves why that is [a concern]. It's not because of my physical appearance. It's not because of my track record. There's nobody in the [presidential] race with a stronger track record" on civil-rights issues.

"It's not that I can't give a pretty good speech. I can preach once in a while," he said.

The problem, Obama said, lies in how some African-Americans think about race and race relations.

"In part, we are still locked in this notion that if we appeal to white folks, then there's something wrong," Obama said, referring to his popularity among some white voters.

"Part of it has to do with fear. We don't want to get too excited about the prospect [of winning] because we might get let down again," he said. "Why say we 'can't' do something? Let's take a chance and see if we can."

By the way, when Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.) addressed the black journalists the day before, she, too, was asked if she was "black enough" - in her case, to sustain the same level of support that her husband, President Bill Clinton, had enjoyed with African-American voters.

She deftly sidestepped the issue.

"I want to represent all of America," she said at one point.

As for Obama, he believes that his being elected would go a long way toward healing lingering racial rifts in the nation.

"As president, the day I'm inaugurated, the racial dynamics in this country will change to some degree. You've got Michelle [Obama] as first lady," he said, adding that his two daughters, Sasha, 6, and Malia, 9, would play on the White House grounds. "That changes how America looks at itself. It changes how white children think about black children and how black children think about black children."

Speaking of Michelle Obama, she seemed annoyed by all the talk about her husband's race.

"We're still playing around with the question: 'Is he black enough?' " she said yesterday before a predominantly black group called Women for Obama in Chicago. "Stop that nonsense."

"We are messing with the heads of our children."

Not to mention our own. *

Have you peeped a hot trend that hasn't been reported? E-mail heyjen@philly-news.com and let me know what you know.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.