{"id":32321,"date":"2013-07-15T02:21:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T02:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=32321"},"modified":"2013-07-15T02:21:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-15T02:21:38","slug":"he-checked-that-box-but-how-black-is-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=32321","title":{"rendered":"He Checked That Box, But How Black is Obama?"},"content":{"rendered":"

He Checked That Box, But How Black is Obama?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Politic365: From Your Point of View<\/a>
\n2013-07-12<\/p>\n

William Reed<\/a><\/strong>, Head
\nThe Business Exchange Network<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you had a choice of color, which one would you choose, my brother?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Curtis Mayfield<\/a>, 1969<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the official U.S. 2010 head count, President Barack Obama<\/a> provided one answer to the question about his ethnic background: African American. Since the option was introduced in 2000, the census figures indicate that the country has 5.2 million multiracial individuals. Americans who check more than one box for race now make up 5 percent of the minority population. It\u2019s of note that Obama didn\u2019t check multiple boxes that were available on the form, or choose the option that allowed him to elaborate on his racial heritage. He simply ticked the box that said \u201cBlack, African American, or Negro.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Though he checked the census \u201cBlack\u201d box, is Obama \u201cBlack\u201d like you and me? To date, he has paid no attention to Blacks and their economic challenges. African-American voters are rooted in the belief that Obama\u2019s platform and persona represent \u201creal Black Americans.\u201d They both may have run the streets of Chicago; however, it\u2019s doubtful Obama knows about the late Curtis Mayfield and what he represented. An American singer, songwriter and record producer best known for his anthem-like music, Mayfield recorded and produced \u201cmessage music\u201d during the 1960s and 1970s. \u201cChoice of Colors\u201d hit No. 1 on Billboard\u2018s R&B chart and reached No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100. Neither did Obama grow up under the influence of a weekly Jet<\/em> and or Ebony<\/em> magazine adorning the family living room coffee table. As opaque as Obama is to Blacks, a fellow Chicago businessman, the late John H. Johnson<\/a>, made his fortune catering to us.<\/p>\n

Obama has yet to show up in the East Room<\/a> in a dashiki<\/a>, but his being \u201cBlack\u201d and being \u201cthere\u201d has spawned \u201cObamania\u201d among African Americans. Black voters love the fact that Obama checked the \u201cBlack\u201d box, even though his mother was a white woman from Kansas. His father was a Black Kenyan. Obama\u2019s biracial identity helped him build a sizable middle-class American following; it\u2019s also opened up questions as to his authenticity as a Black man. \u201cObama and the Biracial Factor<\/a>,\u201d edited by Andrew J. Jolivette<\/a>, is a book that explores the role of Obama\u2019s mixed-race identity in his path to the presidency. It offers a broad and penetrating view of the importance of race in the ongoing development of American politics. It demonstrates how mixed-race identity reinforces rather than challenges white supremacy within popular discourse…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He Checked That Box, But How Black is Obama? Politic365: From Your Point of View 2013-07-12 William Reed, Head The Business Exchange Network \u201cIf you had a choice of color, which one would you choose, my brother?\u201d \u2013 Curtis Mayfield, 1969 In the official U.S. 2010 head count, President Barack Obama provided one answer to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,33,8,26,20],"tags":[368,72,15188,15187,15189],"class_list":["post-32321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-census","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-andrew-j-jolivette","tag-andrew-jolivette","tag-politic365","tag-politic365-from-your-point-of-view","tag-william-reed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}