Saturday, August 11, 2007

Barack Black Enough

I don't know where the question of Barack being black enough originated from. Though, I suspect it came out of a Hillary Clinton campaign power point meeting, then was passed on to the media to create controversy among black voters. So I ask, what does that question mean? To look at Barack, it's obvious he's a black man. So the people who first ask of Baracks' blackness must be saying he does not fit into their view of how a black man is suppose to be. They want us to think if a black man is well educated, refined, works hard, and marries before he fathers children, and is a good husband and father he's not black enough. In my opinion, that is really sending out the wrong message to young black boys and girls. That it's bad to be black and achieve. That true blacks are only the under classed and downscaled.

Barack is Harvard educated intellectual, he could have went to work anywhere, yet he started his career on the south side of Chicago as community organizer for black churches. He was a civil rights attorney. He has worked very hard to help ex-felons get reincorporated in the community. And as we know most ex-felons are black and brown. He could have married any blond, yet he married his equal, the Harvard educated ebony Michelle. They could have lived in any affluent neighborhood, yet he and Michelle chose to raise their children in Chicago's south side. So what's the criteria of a persons' blackness? If Barack had not received a Ivy League education, would this make him black enough? Does the idea that he prefers arugula lettuce over iceberg have a bearing on his black credentials? Or in the case of my daughter who was recently told because she had never watched the 70's black television sitcom "Good Times" she was not black.

I hope that black Americans see this phony controversy for what it is. A load of crap. I especially hope that the black youth take heed of this. Everyone who is born in this country with black African heritage is "black enough". Whether a successful well educated senator running for President, or a high school dropout down on his luck. If one's roots began in Africa, then one's being black enough is not in question. Complexions don't matter. Bloodlines do. So who sets the rules for one being black enough in America? The answer to this question is: the heritage the of at least one of two people who conceived the offspring in question. Yes, Barack is black, inside and out.

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