President Obama on “The View”Posted in Articles, Barack Obama, History, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, Religion, Social Science, United States on 2013-01-11 05:00Z by Steven |
Sojourners: Faith in Action for Social Justice
2010-08-02
Valerie Elverton Dixon
Just Peace Theory
President Obama visited with the five hosts of the ABC daytime talk show “The View.” People complained. He should have gone to the Boy Scout gathering. The office of the presidency ought to be above such a program. These complaints are nonsense. The president ought to speak to his constituents, and the views of “The View” are all people to whom he is accountable.
The women asked interesting questions about the economy, the war, and the Shirley Sherrod episode and what it says about race in America. The president was able to make his case on all of these issues. Barbara Walters asked the president about his personal identity: why he identified as African American rather than as mixed race since his late mother is European American.
In my mind the answer to Walter’s question was obvious because President Obama is literally African American, the son of an African father and an American mother. He answered that he identifies as an African American because in the African-American community the reality that we all are mixed race is known and readily accepted. In one family you can find kin that is the blackest of black and the whitest of white. Racial purity is not a concern…
Read the entire article here.