A perplexing new chapter is unfolding in Barack Obama’s racial saga: Many people insist that “the first Black president” is actually not Black.
Debate over whether to call this son of a White Kansan and a Black Kenyan biracial, African-American, mixed-race, half-and-half, multiracial — or, in Obama’s own words, a “mutt” — has reached a crescendo since Obama’s election shattered assumptions about race.
Obama has said, “I identify as African-American — that’s how I’m treated and that’s how I’m viewed. I’m proud of it.” In other words, the world gave Obama no choice but to be Black, and he was happy to oblige.
But the world has changed since the young Obama found his place in it.
Intermarriage and the decline of racism are dissolving ancient definitions. The candidate Obama, in achieving what many thought impossible, was treated differently from previous Black generations. And many White and mixed-race people now view President-elect Obama as something other than Black.
So what now for racial categories born of a time when those from far-off lands were property rather than people, or enemy instead of family?
