I have two kids with same black mother and I considered them "multi-cultural" and I disagree with anybody in the world who tells me that my kids are black or white. They are part BOTH.

There are many multi-cultural folks out there, ahem Barack for instance and what boils me is that how the media and folks called Barack a black man so the biological truth is that Barack is multi-cultural man. They called him black becuz he goes to majority of black church, participate in Africa forums, start a black club at college and so forth so it is easy to label Barack a black man for his long years of black participation even though he was raised by white grandmother.

My kids and I talk about their true identity and I let them know that no matter what in their life, they will be multi-cultural period.

I dispised racist folks (any person) who tells me that I don't know what I'm talking about and I know what I am talking about. I dated black women over 20 years and met their families and she met mine. During those times when I meet her family and her meeting mine, I see less than half comfort then I do at greatly discomfort.

I never forget this moment when I dated this chick from high school years ago in late 70's and she invited me to her house as a movie date. I went there to pick her up and go to the movie. Her mom was SHOCKED as hell and she told me that she never knew her daughter is going out with a devil (wtf?!?!?) so I told her mom that we're going out to a movie. She flat out refuse to let her daughter go out with me. I asked my date if she told her mom about me and my background and she said with her eyes away that she didn't cuz she knew that her mom would be pissed off.
GREAT.. there goes my night. So then she told me that she ll meet up with me. Remember back in late 70's we had no cell phones so I went ahead to the movie. During half way the movie is about to be over, she comes in and sit next to me with her g friends cuz that's the only way she is able to go out is with her BLACK FRIENDS accorded to her racist mother. Luckily for us, her friends were cool about us so we held hands and kissed.. I told her let's meet my mom and my mother wouldn't be as racist as her mother is. She said no and I asked her why?
She said that society is not ready for interracial couples but we can meet up for romance and sex . I was hurt when she said that so I moved on.

Anyhow, I know what I'm talking about with black folks so I dispised racist medias and folks who claimed their multi-cultural kids as one sided race group.

I like to meet Barack and challenged him to let the world knows that he is really a mulit-cultural man instead of a black man. Cmon Barack, don't be a damn coward!

I understand your point but, are you confusing race with culture?

I am pretty sure there are others on this forum that are on race beside myself that would define themselves as Multi Cultural.

Viewpoint: Is Barack Obama black?

By Kimberly McClain DaCosta
Harvard University


Is Obama black? It depends on who - and when - you ask.

For some of us, the heralding of Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States seems a rather uncontroversial claim.

Not so for others.

One well-known African American writer, Debra Dickerson, famously objected to calling Obama black on the grounds that because he is not descended from slaves, he is not of the people properly defined as "black." Ergo, he is not black - at all.

The bulk of the people protesting against references to Obama as a black man, however, grant that he is "part" black (by way of his father), but assert that because he also has a white mother it is not "accurate" to call him black.

He is "in fact" mixed-race, they say.

Opposing arguments

My first reaction to questions about the "correctness" or "accuracy" of Obama's racial classification is to undermine the premise of the question itself. The search for the "correctness" of racial identity presumes that a definitive answer can be found.

It presumes that race is a real entity, something fixed, or natural. It seems to deny what scholars have laboured for decades to demonstrate - that the criteria used to classify people in racial categories, the categories used in a given society, and the uses to which those categories are put - vary by place and time. They are, as academics are fond of saying, "socially constructed".

Yet the predilections of the scholar fail to satisfy those who claim to know what race Obama "is", for these are really statements about what the speaker thinks he ought to be.

When people insist that Obama "is" black, they point to his self-identification as such, and the assertion that when most people look at him, they see a black man.

Calling him "black" seems to acknowledge the connection between his rise and the struggles of a people.

When others argue that Obama "is" mixed-race, they point to the fact that he has a white mother, not only a black father, and was raised in an interracial family.

Calling him "mixed-race" seems to acknowledge that family, offering a corrective to centuries of denying our tangled genealogies.

De-stigmatisation

What I find most interesting about the question of what racial label to assign Obama, is that we are asking the question at all.

As recently as 20 years ago, the question of Obama's racial position would be presumed settled before it was even asked.

In keeping with the one-drop rule - the practice of categorising as black anyone with any known African ancestry - Obama's identification as a black person would be expected, accepted and unremarkable.

The person suggesting that Obama be classified as mixed-race would quite likely have been met with suspicion or a confused look ("What's that?") since for most of US history, in most places, mixed-race identity has not been collectively recognised.

In the last 20 years, however, the collective efforts of mixed-race people in the US to de-stigmatise interracial families and garner public recognition of mixed race identity have been fairly successful (for example, the US government now enumerates mixed race identities).

Stares

Even so, the question whether Obama is black or mixed-race reflects a basic misunderstanding of the experience of those of us who have grown up in interracial families, particularly those of us of African descent, born in the post-Civil Rights period.

We (I have an African American father and an Irish American mother) were raised on the front lines of racial change, where the new rules about interracial intimacy often clashed with the old - both in public and in our own families.

The affection we were so comfortable showing our white mothers at home drew stares, and worse, from both whites and blacks in public.

It was in our families where we first felt love and protection as well as the first sting of racial prejudice.

And many of us forged a black identity, one that was not at odds with being mixed-race, but arose out of our experiences as mixed people: from an awareness that the racial dilemma we were born into has its deepest roots in anti-black prejudice.

For us, being black and mixed-race are not mutually exclusive. We have learned to live with the contradictions.

Perhaps it's time for everyone else to learn to live with them too.

Kimberly McClain DaCosta is Associate Professor of African and African American Studies and Social Studies at Harvard and the author of Making Multiracials: State, Family and Market in the Redrawing of the Color Line

GML, it's not based on skin color however everybody have some cultural mixed backgrounds.

Politically, we dot down a check when it comes to race questions and because the box checks are limited, that "other" box leaves a wide opening of questions of who that individual really is.


Phil,

Thanks for the clip. I will say that it doesn't have to be decided by "us" but actuality it's the chromosomes that is telling the truth.

[quote name='gml' date='Jan 26 2009, 06:43 PM' post='1731203']

I like to meet Barack and challenged him to let the world knows that he is really a mulit-cultural man instead of a black man. Cmon Barack, don't be a damn coward![/size][/b][/color]
[/quote]


I understand your point but, are you confusing race with culture?

I am pretty sure there are others on this forum that are on race beside myself that would define themselves as Multi Cultural.
[/quote]


They sure do including me, I'm multi-cultural, donna kebabs, fish ans chips, curries, saltfish the lot, Scots, English, Irish, Opera and Ragtime it's all in there somewhere.

I don't think Barack has ever denied his multi-culturism or his mixed-heritage, he's seem quite comfortable with it, even jokingly referring to himself as a "Mutt", In fact has he ever called himself Black ?

I'd guess Baracks reply to MrProman would be "WTF has it got to do with you and get of my lawn".

I wonder MrProman, you seem quite happy to call yourself white, why don't you call yourself multi-cultural as well, you're probably an ad-mixture of several different 'ethnicities' and 'cultures' yourself.

I think it about self-determination, If somebody wants to call themselves, Black, White, Human or Klingon it's up to them, it's not up to 'us' to tell them what or who they are. People can tick whatever box they like, the 'other' box usually has a line underneath it where you can fill in whatever you wish, though you often find it's not long enough to include the many, cultures of our ancestors, genetic or social

once again, people say what they want to say or feel. Either they are confused of their true identity or were not told the truth.

Only the chromosome knows.


As far as me being multi-cultural, yes I am.. being mixed from some europenis shit that I wish I was never be part of.

People just want to keep their life simple so that's why they say.. black, white, hispanic/latino, asia, indian to keep it sweet. Plus the government prefer to keep their paper work less.

My position bears much similarity to that of ProMan's. As far as the "race vs. culture" meaning, "race" truly has more to do with sociology than biology, strictly speaking. Obama is at least half white, but of course, he is called and identifies as black. It is argued that he is socially black, having married a BW and assimilated into the culture to some extent. But even then, there are holes in that argument, because he was raised mostly by his white grandparents. So his childhood socialization was more white than black. I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I can't take "race" that seriously. It has some practical or convenient, though limited, uses in describing people, but really it is so full of contradictions and mythology, it is almost comical.

I don't think there are any holes in the argument as it pertains to his self-identification. He considers himself a black man of mixed descent and does not deny his multi-facetted identity, on the contrary. His atypical experiences have very much shaped his indentity and coming to Chicago and working as a community organiser (and his later courtship and marriage to Michelle) has solidified his identity. He descibes it himelf as sort of 'coming home'.

I have read (actually listened to as audiobook) "Dreams From My Father" and it gives you a good insight into where he's coming from and - quite importantly - as it was writen before he went into politics, there's no obvious political pandering involved, on the contrary. It's a very lucid narrative on how he struggled with and finally came to terms with his identity.

I said in another topic here just a few days ago that I will not dictate to anyone how to self-identify, but I reassert that I cannot take it too seriously. I acknowledge it is a social reality, but it is, at best, arbitrary and imprecise.

It all depends on how others interprete Obama's self-identification. Many people have different agendas when it comes to 'reading' Oabma's blackness. The very ambiguity in it's meaning is also politically expendient (although I doubt that's the reason for his stance): he can be anything to anyone.
On the other hand, and that's more something for the far right and left ideologues, statements such as 'Obama is black' get a meaning far beyond it's original intent, it becomes something concrete and absolute in their minds and the project whatever they identify as 'black' on Obama, he becomes a token, a symbol and is no longer a normal human being.
Anyway, I'll leave it at that or we might drift off in meaningless semantic quibbles (if I haven't already).

It will be a sad day when your identity is uniquely determined by your biology. There really is no confusion here. Barack Obama's self identification as black has a very specific meaning, it's only that some people like to read more into it than there is to read.


Being multi-ethnic doesn't necessarily mean multi-cultural. To a non-American observer, the cultural differences are - though real - not all that big. There's far more cultural difference between e.g. Brits and Germans than between African Americans and white Americans. I suspect it's more of a different perpective on a shared reality.


No shit, LOL

He's Bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!! Mwah, N. !

"You're White, right?"

"No I'm mixed-race"

"What! like Black and White?"

"No, my mother is a Buddhist from India and father an Egyptian Jew"

"but you're so light"

"nothing I can do about that, apparently my maternal great great grand mother was married to a British soldier who was paid £10 by the government for the pleasure"

"Do you enjoy Sheeps heads and cus-cus"

"nope, can't stand the stuff, boiled pork and cabbage is my fave"

"that's not very exotic"

"guess not, I was bought up and raised as a catholic in Northern Ireland by my uncle twice removed.

"twice removed from where ha ha"

"New York actually, he never did get his green card"

"so you like guinness"

"Yuk, Belgium Trappist beer is my tipple oh and fine champagne"

"So you're mixed race, multi-cultural with an indeterminate ethnicity"

"Yes.....but you can call me Dave"

Good one Phil!



However, I must add that we have a name and preferred to be reconized by our name. People are so political incorrect when it comes to background check.

Sometimes I get soooo bored and ticked off with all the race discussions WHATEVER BARACK WANTS TO CALL HIMSELF IS ENTIRELY UP TO HIM! why does it have to be an issue for others? nobody has the right to insist that he call himself biracial, multicultural, mixed race ...... bla bla bla IT'S NOBODYS BUSINESS ... GRRRR....

Why should anyone question him about it? Why would anyone tell him not to be a coward? IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! having biracial children does NOT automatically give you the right to question how any other racially mixed person chooses to define themselves!

GOD! I am so fed up with it all!

Personally I could care less what Barack chooses to call himself all that matters to me is that he appears to be a beautyful PERSON!

I'm sorry if I have come off on here like a B***H but I have just this very day had a physical fight with somebody about this very same issue so i'm quite raw about it at the moment, I just had to respond, this world makes me so tired sometimes! Why cant we just let people be?

I can only speak for myself, but I already said a few times that I don't make it my business how an individual chooses to identify or not identify. I have mostly complained about the hype over it all, especially from the media.

No shit! blame the media! blame the people who thinks by creating some incorrect political background will make them feel better and connected.

DC news interviewed black families who came to town by plane and trains. Black folks were telling the tv news that they are DELIGHTED to be here and witness the first BLACK PRESIDENT.. blah blah blah..
The media calls him an AA
folks said he s black and others said he s half black and half white..

WTF

so yea, let people be themselves and ,,I,, the world so we can move on and live our lives.

Lastly, you said that you had a physical fight with somebody over political incorrect? wow damn

I think that you may be in some type of denial. Barack Obama looks like a black man. When he looks in the mirror that is wha the sees. That's fine that you want to tell your kids that they are multi-cultural. Anyone could be multicultural. The fact is that when people see them walking down the street they will assume that they are black becuase what they see.

This is what makes people go through a lot of negative things or they have an identity crisis. No matter what you tell them, people will see them as one thing and refer to them as one thing, which is a black individual.

Hope you understand what I am saying.

denial of what.... by telling the truth?

you said BO LOOKS like a black man..


you see, that's my whole point.. people see, feel, touch and engaged into incorrect political judgements...

BO's chromosomes said that he is part african and part european so therefore he is mulit-cultural.

People say things and do things becuz they WANT TO FIT IN.. simple put

No he isn't, at least not for that reason. Your genetic composition doesn't have any bearing on your culture. He is multi-cultural because of his unique diverse life experiences. He may be multi-racial (although even the use of that term is debatable), but his cultural identity is that of a black man. Why do you want to deny that? Him being black doesn't in any way, shape or form extract from his diverse multi-cultural and multi-ethic background. It's not an either-or position.


And that's wrong because ... ?

People say things and do things becuz they WANT TO FIT IN.. simple put[/size][/b][/color]
[/quote]
And that's wrong because ... ?
[/quote]




They are NOT being themselves, that's why.

[quote name='MrProMan' date='Feb 3 2009, 09:57 PM' post='1731424']
People say things and do things becuz they WANT TO FIT IN.. simple put[/size][/b][/color]
[/quote]
And that's wrong because ... ?
[/quote]

They are NOT being themselves, that's why.
[/quote]


Barack is being himself in every way, shape, and form thank you. Him identifying as a Black man does not mean that he wants to fit in with society. Obama identifies as Black because THAT HAS BEEN HIS LIFE EXPERIENCE! Do you honestly think that when these right-wing nutjobs were calling Obama a social, a terrorist, a MUSLIM, and an anti-Semite that they thought of him as biracial?? Hell no. Obama himself told Charlie Rose in an interview, "If I'm trying to catch a cab they're not saying 'Oh look, there's a mixed-race guy'" Hello??!! You can Google it by the way, if you think I'm lying. The Fox(fake) News Channel commentators only acknowleged Obama being half white AFTER he won and made history. Not while they were making bullshit accusations about Obama before the election.

Bottomline is, people have the right to self-identify as however they like, whether multiracial or monoracial PERIOD. You haven't been in Obama's shoes nor lived his life so you don't have a leg to stand up on to judge him. Please realize and recognize.

[quote name='Maki' date='Mar 11 2009, 01:21 AM' post='1732355']
[quote name='MrProMan' date='Feb 3 2009, 09:57 PM' post='1731424']
People say things and do things becuz they WANT TO FIT IN.. simple put[/size][/b][/color]
[/quote]
And that's wrong because ... ?
[/quote]

They are NOT being themselves, that's why.
[/quote]


Barack is being himself in every way, shape, and form thank you. Him identifying as a Black man does not mean that he wants to fit in with society. Obama identifies as Black because THAT HAS BEEN HIS LIFE EXPERIENCE! Do you honestly think that when these right-wing nutjobs were calling Obama a social, a terrorist, a MUSLIM, and an anti-Semite that they thought of him as biracial?? Hell no. Obama himself told Charlie Rose in an interview, "If I'm trying to catch a cab they're not saying 'Oh look, there's a mixed-race guy'" Hello??!! You can Google it by the way, if you think I'm lying. The Fox(fake) News Channel commentators only acknowleged Obama being half white AFTER he won and made history. Not while they were making bullshit accusations about Obama before the election.

Bottomline is, people have the right to self-identify as however they like, whether multiracial or monoracial PERIOD. You haven't been in Obama's shoes nor lived his life so you don't have a leg to stand up on to judge him. Please realize and recognize.
[/quote]


SO MUCH for breaking it down so succinctly!
And I appreciate that you called out the right wing
and the racists for trying to shape the uneducated public's
perceptions of Obama's racial identity.
I found it interesting that it's been WHITE MEN who seem to have the most problem
with him identifying primarily as black,when it was THEIR COLONIAL LAWS that
made it necessary--in the 21st century,no less!-- for him to LEGALLY ignore the white half
of his ancestry. It's like they want to claim some part of him NOW that he's the
"leader of the free world".
Can you imagine how crazy it would be if Tiger Woods'
mom had been an American white woman instead of a Thai national?

Yes its amusing that for some he was black before and now he's mixed.

Then again, Isn't that what many black people are also doing ? claiming him wholey to be their own, not just in part, perhaps this is what some white people fear ?

I think white people aren't used to defining themselves as white and they generally only do it in the context of seperating themselves from non-white people when discussing racial issues, white people aren't reminded every day that they are white, the problems that beset white people don't generally happen because they're white.

Thus being white isn't normally an issue for white people, the arrival of Barack in the White House has made them re-think their position in society in racial terms, perhap there's a deep down feeling or fear, concious or otherwise, that as a black man Barack can't possibly represent them fairly without prejudice, they know that they can't say he's white, that'd be stupid wouldn't it, defining him as multi-cultural or mixed race is the next best thing, it's helping them feel more comfortable with a Black man in charge.

And if certain sections of the American people are feeling a tad uncomfortable now, just wait a few decade when the demographics change and 'white' will be a minority group.