Tiffany B. Brown

a mish-mosh of stuff

Thoughts on Barack Obama and Choosing Blackness

I use “black” and refer to blackness and black culture in a variety of ways in this post. In some contexts, I mean “descended from Africans and living in the United States.” In others I mean “descended from Africans enslaved in the United States.” I tried to be clear, but sometimes that just isn’t enough. I trust that y’all did well in reading comprehension in school and can figure out which meaning I’m using based on its context.

I voted for Obama. I celebrated his victory and I might just take the day off (or at least work from home) on Inauguration Day. But it took me a while to become comfortable with his campaign, in part because of the reasons Debra Dickerson articulated nearly a year ago.

I can’t and won’t revoke his membership in the American Society of Black Folks, of course. But I do think his heritage that is both black immigrant and Midwestern white gives him a perspective on life and on blackness that most black Americans — that is, those of us descended from Africans enslaved in the United states — don’t necessarily enjoy.

Barack Obama is “Black by Choice.” He is the son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother, which makes him racially black, though not culturally so. He was also raised by white folks from Kansas with stints in Indonesia and Hawaii. Have you checked the percentage of black Americans in Hawaii lately? That black Americans are almost non-existent in Indonesia doesn’t need to be stated.

Now Obeezy could easily have cultivated a distinctly bi-racial identity as so many bi-racial and bi-cultural children do. He easily could have cultivated an incidentally or accidentally black identity because of the demographics of the cities in which he was raised.

And yet, he chose to return to his African first name rather than be known as the far less foreign, far more familiar-sounding “Barry.” He chose to work as a community organizer on Chicago’s south side. He chose to attend a predominantly black church with a sort of crazy preacher. And he chose to marry a black woman from the south side of Chicago no less.

Because it was a matter of choice and not upbringing, Obama also had the freedom to choose which portions of black identity he wanted to claim. If I had to guess, I would say being black in mostly-white environment lead to some cognitive dissonance that allowed him to adopt some portions of a black American cultural identity (collectivism, social justice, and bou(r)gie Negro code-speak, for example) while eschewing the negative stereotypes of blackness.

And by crafting his own black identity and becoming president of the United States, perhaps Obama has — as so many other black immigrants and bi-racial blacks have — expanded our collective conceptions of what black is.

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  • http://intensedebate.com/people/tiffanybbrown tiffanybbrown

    Let's be real jongos: if Obama were "all black," or were darker skinned, he wouldn't be president. Period. The biracial part of his biography was played up and he distanced himself from older black politicians in a way that made white people comfortable and would have had black people looking at him sideways if he had not been a Democrat.

    That said, my point in paragraph 6 is that immigrants and bi-racial Americans have a different experience with blackness than black Americans do. Research shows that the children of black immigrants have higher educational attainment. Black immigrants on the whole also have higher incomes. Now while I think there are easy ways to rebut some of this evidence (starting with "immigrants are self-selected" and "you can't be a legal immigrant unless you are educated), I don't entirely dismiss the notion that black American culture, and — more importantly — exposure to sterotypes and archetypes of blackness — plays a role. If you grow up outside of black American culture, you are free to arrive at a black identity in a far different way.

    @Corvida: As Albert points out, we usually conflate legal race, racial identity, ethnicity, national origin and culture when speaking about black people. It's necessary to separate them when discussing Obama.

    For me, "black" is my cultural orientation, my racial identity, and my legal race. When I go abroad, it's quite clear quite quickly that I am an American, and a black American. But for immigrants, their cultural identity may be "Nigerian" or "Trinidadian" though their racial identity is black. Or they may be "Boricua" and legally black, but don't identify as "black" racially or culturally. See Willie Perdomo's "Nigger-Reecan Blues" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz7f-iI9VNg

    So, yes, I think that a black *cultural* identity has to do with where you are raised and by whom. Families and community are how culture gets preserved and transferred.

    But I think a black racial identity is also shaped by how others perceive and define you. And your legal race (in the U.S.) may be black, regardless of your cultural or racial identities.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/tiffanybbrown tiffanybbrown

    Let's be real jongos: if Obama were "all black," or were darker skinned, he wouldn't be president. Period. The biracial part of his biography was played up and he distanced himself from older black politicians in a way that made white people comfortable and would have had black people looking at him sideways if he had not been a Democrat.

    That said, my point in paragraph 6 is that immigrants and bi-racial Americans have a different experience with blackness than black Americans do. Research shows that the children of black immigrants have higher educational attainment. Black immigrants on the whole also have higher incomes. Now while I think there are easy ways to rebut some of this evidence (starting with "immigrants are self-selected" and "you can't be a legal immigrant unless you are educated), I don't entirely dismiss the notion that black American culture, and — more importantly — exposure to sterotypes and archetypes of blackness — plays a role. If you grow up outside of black American culture, you are free to arrive at a black identity in a far different way.

    @Corvida: As Albert points out, we usually conflate legal race, racial identity, ethnicity, national origin and culture when speaking about black people. It's necessary to separate them when discussing Obama.

    For me, "black" is my cultural orientation, my racial identity, and my legal race. When I go abroad, it's quite clear quite quickly that I am an American, and a black American. But for immigrants, their cultural identity may be "Nigerian" or "Trinidadian" though their racial identity is black. Or they may be "Boricua" and legally black, but don't identify as "black" racially or culturally. See Willie Perdomo's "Nigger-Reecan Blues" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz7f-iI9VNg

    So, yes, I think that a black *cultural* identity has to do with where you are raised and by whom. Families and community are how culture gets preserved and transferred.

    But I think a black racial identity is also shaped by how others perceive and define you. And your legal race (in the U.S.) may be black, regardless of your cultural or racial identities.

  • http://shegeeks.net/ Corvida

    Wow! Great post Tiffany! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I agree that he just might change a lot of perceptions about what "black" is. Now you've got me thinking! =P My friend just asked me if being black is all about where you raised? So I guess I'll forward that question to you. Your thoughts center around his upbringing a lot more than anything.

  • http://shegeeks.net Corvida

    Wow! Great post Tiffany! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I agree that he just might change a lot of perceptions about what "black" is. Now you've got me thinking! =P My friend just asked me if being black is all about where you raised? So I guess I'll forward that question to you. Your thoughts center around his upbringing a lot more than anything.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/tiffanybbrown tiffanybbrown

    Here's the text of Willie Perdomo's "Nigger-Reecan Blues" by the way: http://sbacari.tripod.com/poetry/nricanblues.htmSince I don't speak Spanish, I find it's easier to figure out the Spanish parts when it's written rather than spoken.

  • http://www.intensedebate.com/people/tiffanybbrown tiffanybbrown

    Here's the text of Willie Perdomo's "Nigger-Reecan Blues" by the way: http://sbacari.tripod.com/poetry/nricanblues.htm. Since I don't speak Spanish, I find it's easier to figure out the Spanish parts when it's written rather than spoken.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/tiffanybbrown tiffanybbrown

    Here's the text of Willie Perdomo's "Nigger-Reecan Blues" by the way: http://sbacari.tripod.com/poetry/nricanblues.htmSince I don't speak Spanish, I find it's easier to figure out the Spanish parts when it's written rather than spoken.

  • http://www.intensedebate.com/people/tiffanybbrown tiffanybbrown

    Here's the text of Willie Perdomo's "Nigger-Reecan Blues" by the way: http://sbacari.tripod.com/poetry/nricanblues.htm. Since I don't speak Spanish, I find it's easier to figure out the Spanish parts when it's written rather than spoken.

  • http://backtype.com/alwillis Albert Willis

    Great observation that Obama is black by choice.

    In a conversation yesterday, I explained that the media keeps saying Obama is the first African-American president when they really mean the first black president—at least in the way that African-American and black are usually used. Although there's always been black people like Obama, his presidency should shed light on the fact that not everyone who's of African descent is the descendant of enslaved Africans. It's the usual confusion of race, ethnicity, culture and nationality.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/alwillis Albert Willis

    Great observation that Obama is black by choice.

    In a conversation yesterday, I explained that the media keeps saying Obama is the first African-American president when they really mean the first black president—at least in the way that African-American and black are usually used. Although there's always been black people like Obama, his presidency should shed light on the fact that not everyone who's of African descent is the descendant of enslaved Africans. It's the usual confusion of race, ethnicity, culture and nationality.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/jongos jongos

    I'm sorry but this is ridiculous. If Obama were "all black" would the reality of his message change? No. Would people be less receptive. Perhaps…but this article is an insult to anyone who is black and who lives by the same philosophies as Obama. Further more, any black person can choose to eschew 'the negative stereotypes of blackness' regardless of how dark their skin is or how light their parents skin happens to have been. There's no more magic in being biracial than there is in not being biracial. Yes, there is something interesting in 'that choice' to associate with one group more than another but ultimately the ideas he supports aren't defined by race or class. It's a mater of personal constitution and thinking for yourself in spite of cultural indicators.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/jongos jongos

    I'm sorry but this is ridiculous. If Obama were "all black" would the reality of his message change? No. Would people be less receptive. Perhaps…but this article is an insult to anyone who is black and who lives by the same philosophies as Obama. Further more, any black person can choose to eschew 'the negative stereotypes of blackness' regardless of how dark their skin is or how light their parents skin happens to have been. There's no more magic in being biracial than there is in not being biracial. Yes, there is something interesting in 'that choice' to associate with one group more than another but ultimately the ideas he supports aren't defined by race or class. It's a mater of personal constitution and thinking for yourself in spite of cultural indicators.

  • RaeJene

    While I find what Tiffany says makes sense, I can't help but wonder why white people don't make those destinctions when they immigrate to the United States, regardless of what tan- tint is in the the skin. They are all labeled as white, and are accepted as white regardless of having culturally different upbringings. Have you noticed they don't treat each other differently because of it? They are accepted as White, and nobody questions their whiteness. If Blacks have differences in skin tint or tone we tend to question it, because we want to be different, we want to be better, and because dog gone it, I have white heritage too, and its not fair that I have to be associated totally with Black people. My skin tone is light, and that should at least get me a" white card". I should be able to choose white too. The problem is some biracial/ mixed people are not white enough to gain entry into the white club, and will have to form a biracial club that Blacks are not allowed in. The bad news is, it's still not the white club, and never will be in the USA.

  • RaeJene

    While I find what Tiffany says makes sense, I can't help but wonder why white people don't make those destinctions when they immigrate to the United States, regardless of what tan- tint is in the the skin. They are all labeled as white, and are accepted as white regardless of having culturally different upbringings. Have you noticed they don't treat each other differently because of it? They are accepted as White, and nobody questions their whiteness. If Blacks have differences in skin tint or tone we tend to question it, because we want to be different, we want to be better, and because dog gone it, I have white heritage too, and its not fair that I have to be associated totally with Black people. My skin tone is light, and that should at least get me a" white card". I should be able to choose white too. The problem is some biracial/ mixed people are not white enough to gain entry into the white club, and will have to form a biracial club that Blacks are not allowed in. The bad news is, it's still not the white club, and never will be in the USA.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/tiffanybbrown tiffanybbrown

    Except they do RaeJene. Armenians, Persians, and Arabs are considered "white" by the Census Bureau and yet many people — both members of those ethnic groups and those outside of them — would not consider any of these groups to be "white." http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68184…. Southern Europeans (Italians, Greeks) also have a similar sort of 'off-white' status. And when the Irish came to the U.S. en masse they campaigned for the benefits of white skin privilege. (See Noel Ignatiev's "How the Irish Became White," for more.)

    Claiming a bi-racial or bi-cultural identity isn't the same thing as saying "Yeah, I got some Indian in my family. That's why I got this good hair." The latter is entirely about trying to be something other than black because of what you associate with blackness. The former is very much about straddling two worlds that may or may not fully accept you. It's not fair to equate them.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/tiffanybbrown tiffanybbrown

    Except they do RaeJene. Armenians, Persians, and Arabs are considered "white" by the Census Bureau and yet many people — both members of those ethnic groups and those outside of them — would not consider any of these groups to be "white." http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68184…. Southern Europeans (Italians, Greeks) also have a similar sort of 'off-white' status. And when the Irish came to the U.S. en masse they campaigned for the benefits of white skin privilege. (See Noel Ignatiev's "How the Irish Became White," for more.)

    Claiming a bi-racial or bi-cultural identity isn't the same thing as saying "Yeah, I got some Indian in my family. That's why I got this good hair." The latter is entirely about trying to be something other than black because of what you associate with blackness. The former is very much about straddling two worlds that may or may not fully accept you. It's not fair to equate them.