Rhythm, Race and Politics

I guess I should be happy that finally, America is talking openly about race. We’ve got new laws and resolutions to ban the “N” word. We’ve got re-enactments of bloody Sunday down in Selma, recalling the events that culminated in the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

We’ve got blogs and news programs and major magazines debating whether or not Obama is black enough and accepted by “real black” Americans. Others want to know if Hillary and her card carrying black man of a husband will steal the White House away from the “blood born” black man that is Barack.

We’ve even got the Cherokee Nation kicking out the descendants of their slaves because they are not Native American by blood. Yes, Native Americans owned black slaves, in case that lesson was omitted from your history book. And up until yesterday, the slave descendants were considered part of the Cherokee Nation. The vote to rescind tribal membership was 76 percent in favor. Some are calling the vote racist. Others say it is self determination.

This Obama thing is funny. For most of this country’s history, what defined people as black was “one drop” of black blood, never mind what the skin color was. Obama is fully 50 percent black, so what is the problem? He looks black. He married black. His kids are black. He goes to a black church. Black man!

If white supremacists ever kick off their racial holy war, Obama will be right there next to Tiger Woods getting his head blown off with the rest of us obviously real blacks. So why question his ethnicity now when he’s running for president? Unlike young Eldrick, he doesn’t appear conflicted about who he is, so why should we be?

Anyone remember the Rainbow coalition. Jesse Jackson used to tell us that there were 64 shades of blackness. Black people, Jackson used to say, come in all colors and shades.
African Americans are a living, breathing rainbow. Obama is one shade of that rainbow.

Again I ask, what is the problem? Maybe it’s because he doesn’t feel black. Bill Clinton feels like a black man even though he isn’t and that is hard to explain. There is a rhythm to blackness... a musical....lyrical way of reacting to and within the universe. I’ll be honest, I don’t feel that rhythm with Obama. But I do feel that rhythm with Bill Clinton. I don’t feel that rhythm with Hillary Clinton. Hillary is a white girl, brilliant, but rhythm-less. Clarence Thomas is very obviously a black man. But he is rhythm-less and clueless and I’m not feeling him at all.

But my feelings don’t make Obama any less black. I can still relate to the brother and I suspect that most of my fellow blacks can too.

Now can we get on with the real issues of this campaign?