Obama's Blackness

Why do so many American-born Blacks, who take on African names and don African or African-inspired garb, now question the authenticity of a true African-American: Barack Obama? He is the progeny of a White American woman and a Black Kenyan man. How much more American and African can you get?

Barack Obama has never denied his Blackness. He has embraced it, though he has never denied his White or Indonesian relatives. In his pre-Senator Rock Star career, he was a community organizer in Black Chicago neighborhoods. He lobbied for Black interests as an Illinois state legislator. He's married to a Black woman, and he has two Black children.

Maybe it is fortunate that the Blackness issue is emerging so early -- even among well-meaning but patronizing folks like Joe Biden, who has been taken to task for thinking he was praising Obama when he described his fellow senator and potential presidential campaign rival as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

Jesse Jackson has defended Obama's Blackness and has tried to depict Biden as guilty of nothing more than "foot-in-mouth syndrome." Forget Biden, though, and the kind of benign ignorance he represents. I'm more concerned about Black folks.

Is having a slave in one's family tree REALLY the litmus test? More important than that, and I say this as one who has slaves in her family tree, is his stand on the issues we care about -- or should care about.