At a little over five weeks until the inauguration of Barack Obama and just about the same since he was elected we can’t seem to get beyond the race issue. I wrote shortly after the election I was glad so many voters could put aside the race issue, but in fact it doesn’t seem we have. Everyone wants to label the man as this or that. I recently saw a cartoon that had two people talking about the issue, and the white one says to the other, “He’s half-white you know.” The other one which had definite non white features said, “You must be so proud.” That isn’t the only piece to suggest that Barack isn’t proud of his white heritage, nor is it the only piece to make it plain that many blacks don’t consider him one of their own either.
While I am all for neat orderly labels on things that can be neatly ordered and labeled. People are not meant to carry labels other than the one that says, “Made of human parts. Assembled in a woman.” What other label is needed to be officially licensed as a person?
Does it matter what race Barack Obama identifies with so long as it is the human race? Maybe I hold this issue a little closer than most since as a single guy dated women across the racial spectrum, from Andean native to a girl from Zimbabwe. I potentially could have had children with any of them and while my government, friends and even the most racist members of my family would have granted that made them Americans. None of the above would ever have said my children with these women were white, with the exception of those who were white. It wouldn’t have mattered to me what color these kids skin was, their label would have been my children and TLC required. Simply put babies, which I am sure Barack Obama once was, do not come with a “wash darks separately, do not use chlorine bleach” label.
We all grow up to look like we look, judge us not because of the DNA we carry, but by the actions that define us as humans.
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