The First Black President

A quote from today's Chicago Tribune: "New surveys show steep declines in Obama's approval ratings among whites--including Democrats and independents--who were crucial elements of the diverse coalition that helped elect the country's first black president."

"The country's first black president"? For some time now, this concept has disturbed me. First of all, BHO is only half "black", apparently. Mainstream society no longer utilizes the antebellum nomenclature of "mulatto", "octaroon", and so on, so at what point of diminishing ethnic content would an individual cease to be "black" or Irish or Greek or whatever? In point of fact, BHO is just as much white as he is black, from a genetic standpoint. Secondly, BHO does not in any way fit the definition of an African American as it's generally understood. He isn't descended from Africans brought to the US in chains and eventually liberated by the Union army. He wasn't raised by or among blacks. He hasn't really participated in the "black experience". The idea that the American black community could not only accept him as one of their own but practically unanimously vote for his presidency on the basis of his superficial appearance is racism in high heels and fishnet stockings.

Certainly, the idea, of course, is not that he is the "first black president". I must have slept through the love fest during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings. The election success of BHO is just as much a product of left wing class warfare as racial solidarity and good ideas for governance.