{"id":36266,"date":"2014-04-15T19:54:30","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T19:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=36266"},"modified":"2014-04-17T02:17:39","modified_gmt":"2014-04-17T02:17:39","slug":"forget-policy-americans-cant-even-agree-on-whether-obama-is-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=36266","title":{"rendered":"Forget Policy\u2014Americans Can’t Even Agree on Whether Obama Is Black"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forget Policy\u2014Americans Can’t Even Agree on Whether Obama Is Black<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

TakePart<\/a>
\n2014-04-15<\/p>\n

Liz Dwyer<\/strong><\/a>, Staff Writer<\/p>\n

A Pew Research Center study finds that whites and Latinos identify the commander-in-chief as ‘mixed race.’<\/em><\/p>\n

If you thought the United States had achieved the significant historic milestone of electing its first African American president, think again. According to Next America<\/em><\/a>, a just-released Pew Research Center<\/a> report, only a little over one-fourth of Americans believe Obama<\/a> is black.<\/p>\n

Obama self-identifies as black\u2014he checked the \u201cblack, negro, African American\u201d box on the 2010 U.S. Census\u2014and has jokingly identified himself as a mutt too. But when asked if Obama is black or mixed race, 27 percent of Americans say that he\u2019s black, and 52 percent say he\u2019s mixed race.<\/p>\n

When the data is broken out according to racial groups, whites and Hispanics respond similarly. Of whites, 24 percent say Obama is black, and 53 percent say he is mixed race. As for Hispanics, 23 percent say he\u2019s black, and 61 percent say he\u2019s mixed race. Asians weren\u2019t asked what they thought. (What\u2019s up with that, Pew?)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The question\u2014Is Obama black or mixed race?\u2014is phrased oddly. A person can be both. And where is Pew’s \u201cIs Obama black or mixed race or white\u201d option? But this study is simply the latest example of America\u2019s mass confusion over Obama\u2019s identity…<\/p>\n

…Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni<\/a>, writer and star of One Drop of Love<\/em><\/a> (Ben Affleck, Chay Carter, and Matt Damon are co-producers), a multimedia show that explores how a father and a daughter develop their racial identities, says she finds it \u201cproblematic to allow anyone other than self to identify people as a ‘race.’ \u201d<\/p>\n

Now we get boxes on the U.S. Census survey, but, says Cox DiGiovanni, \u201cuntil 1970 the race question on the Census was answered through observation by the Census taker.\u201d That means if you looked \u201cblack,\u201d you were identified by the Census taker as black\u2014or \u201cnegro,\u201d as African Americans were called then…<\/p>\n

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

Forget Policy\u2014Americans Can’t Even Agree on Whether Obama Is Black TakePart 2014-04-15 Liz Dwyer, Staff Writer A Pew Research Center study finds that whites and Latinos identify the commander-in-chief as ‘mixed race.’ If you thought the United States had achieved the significant historic milestone of electing its first African American president, think again. According to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,33,8,20],"tags":[118,12646,17221,3122,17220],"class_list":["post-36266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-census","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-fanshen-cox","tag-fanshen-cox-digiovanni","tag-liz-dwyer","tag-pew-research-center","tag-takepart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36266","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=36266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}