Not Black Enough?

InstaGlenn:

SHE’S RIGHT: “The wife of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Sunday admonished those who question her biracial husband’s credentials as a black man, calling the issue ”nonsense.'”

But in an age of identity politics, it’s unavoidable.

(Sigh)

Honestly, Glenn, you’d be better off if you allowed yourself the privilege of telling the truth on the matter ; That it’s the Democrats themselves who brought this upon themselves.  The Democrats have for generations depended upon the politics of faction for their bread and butter.  Ultimately, it ended up being why blacks get into the habit of voting Democrat in the first place… Their detriment, in my view.  by this, I’d do not specifically intend to mean faction in the way that Washington dealt with it in his farewell address.  I do intend my statement to suggest, and to decry, that the democrats have said one minority group against another, and reap the benefits of that strife .  Instead of all of us being Americans, we are black Americans, white Americans, native Americans, Italian Americans, German Americans, polish Americans, etc. etc. ad nauseam.

And here, to my mind, is where Washington’s words take the greatest of force:

They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Look, there are many things I would rather be , then a supporter of Obama. but in this, at least, Mrs Obama does have it right; The last I understood, we were supposed to be judging people not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.  There is enough in the way of questions in my mind about the content of his character, without questioning whether not he isn’t “Black Enough”.

Now;  all that said, I view this criticism that Obama isn’t “black enough” not to have a great deal to do with race, but rather more to do with culture.  Specifically, in this case, he has adopted mainstream American culture , for the most part, rather than black street culture.

When the discussion is framed that way several questions occur .  Among them;

• Does anybody really think that someone deeply immersed in black street culture is actually going to be president?  Snoop Dogg, President of the US, as an example?
• Or is it that those claiming  Obama isn’t “Black enough”, view him as being independently successful, and thereby disqualified as being truly black?  See also, Clarence Thomas.  Put another way, must one be dependent on governmental largess to be “black enough”?
• How many making these judgments, are black themselves?

A post that I wrote about the beginning of this month raised the question “What exactly is a jury of your peers”?  Does someone on a jury have to have the same skin color, job, socioeconomic standing, and so on , for their judgments on guilt or innocence to be valid?  Or does the phrase suggest, rather, simply a fellow American?

It seems to me, that pretty much the same question can be asked of someone attaining elective office.  Does someone trying to attain have to have the same skin color, job, socioeconomic standing, and so on , as the person they represent,  might they be equally well represented by someone who qualifies simply as a fellow American?

Personally, I’d like to see these questions put before the congressional black caucus.  I suspect that the resulting dancing will make “Stomp the Yard” look like a test pattern by comparison.