France’s respected daily, Liberation, has a very idiosyncratic article entitled, “Immaculate Blackness”. It begins (in translation) thus;
Barack Obama is going to win the next presidential election because he is not black.
Barack Obama isn’t black? No: and it is not because his mother is “as white as milk” in accordance with the “proper” description of the candidate. The reason that Barack Obama is not representative of black America is because his father is Kenyan.
This is true by the way. One does not say “black,” one says “African American.” And truly, black Americans are not “African” except through a long ago memory of their origin which passed from them by way of the original American sin of slavery.
To make sense of it, read the rest of the Liberation piece, translated into English, here on Watching America.com. Suffice to say, the French think Obama may hold a lesson for them.
Thought for the day: Bob Marley, a “black” cultural icon, wasn’t black, either. He was half-black, just like Obama. And one clue to our having achieved true racial equality is when we begin using that term.
Robin Koerner is a British-born citizen of the USA, who currently serves as Academic Dean of the John Locke Institute. He holds graduate degrees in both Physics and the Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge (U.K.). He is also the founder of WatchingAmerica.com, an organization of over 100 volunteers that translates and posts in English views about the USA from all over the world.
Robin may be best known for having coined the term “Blue Republican” to refer to liberals and independents who joined the GOP to support Ron Paul’s bid for the presidency in 2012 (and, in so doing, launching the largest coalition that existed for that candidate).
Robin’s current work as a trainer and a consultant, and his book If You Can Keep It , focus on overcoming distrust and bridging ideological division to improve politics and lives. His current project, Humilitarian, promotes humility and civility as a basis for improved political discourse and outcomes.