Black White Man

For those of you who may have missed it:

Good speech. He yet again managed to move me emotionally without saying anything in particular. But, the more I think about it, the more I think that that may actually be the job of a president. The president doesn’t actually do much. He sets tone. He makes speaches. He’s a leader. But the people getting the job done are in the capital building. So, maybe an Obama is just what we need.

Plus I think it’ll do wonders for the confidence of both African Americans and Black Africans.

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Is it just me, or is Obama consciously trying to emulate the Revered Dr. Martin Luther King in his vibrato intonation of “they SAID…”?

Here’s something a little lighter for this upcoming holiday season:

http://elegantdiva.blogspot.com/2007/12/queen-charlotte-descended-from-warlike.html

As a biracial person I often have a hard time envisioning history the way it seems most people do. I can’t easily imagine myself even existing in previous eras — but when I come across biracial people in history, like this fine lady or the great Russian poet Pushkin, it helps me to contextualize that multi-racial relationships and therefore multiracial people are nothing new.

http://www.marieclaire.com/world/articles/black-white-skin

It’s amazing to me how the ethnicity of African people can be judged solely on the color of their skin. Looking at this beautiful woman from a recent Marie Claire article, it’s clear to me that she’s Black… even though she’s not, um, Black. Her nose, lips, eyes and hair are all purely African. It’s no suprise that she’s an albino. And yet, from her own account, she generally taken to be white by strangers. This is mind-boggling to me.

In a word, yes. And the question is ridiculous.

In college, my roomate for two years was a good friend of mine who was born in Nigeria and moved to Long Island at a young age. For as long as he could remember, he was here in the States. When I first met him he would wonder whether he was “African American”, or simply “African”. He wondered if perhaps he shouldn’t be called “African American” because his ancestors had no heritage of slavery.

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