Black like who, exactly?

A story is emerging about Barack Obama’s popularity with white voters vs. black voters that I predict is going to get a whole lot more play in the upcoming year.

The press is loving the angle that black voters have their doubts about Obama. And their doubts, if the data is to be believed, are based on their apparently collective opinion that although Obama is without a doubt an African-American, he’s just not “black” enough for some blacks.

Or as Stanley Crouch of the NY Daily News puts it:

Why then do we still have such a simple-minded conception of black and white - and how does it color the way we see Obama? The naive ideas coming out of Pan-Africanism are at the root of the confusion. When Pan-African ideas began to take shape in the 19th century, all black people, regardless of where in the world they lived, suffered and shared a common body of injustices. Europe, after all, had colonized much of the black world, and the United States had enslaved people of African descent for nearly 250 years.

Suffice it to say: This is no longer the case.

So when black Americans refer to Obama as "one of us," I do not know what they are talking about. In his new book, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama makes it clear that, while he has experienced some light versions of typical racial stereotypes, he cannot claim those problems as his own - nor has he lived the life of a black American.

Excuse me Stanley, but HUH?

I’m willing to believe that a black man can live in America but not “live the life of a black American.” I mean, well, OJ springs to mind, of course. But I’m really not sure on what basis Crouch is saying Obama has not lived like a black American, or that he’s experienced only “stereotyping lite.” But then, I haven’t read Obama’s book. Perhaps if some of my readers have, they could pipe up about how they feel about that assertion.

He goes on to say "If we then end up with him as our first black President, he will have come into the White House through a side door - which might, at this point, be the only one that's open.”

So Obama’s blackness constitutes a “side door?”

Once again: HUH?

But okay, I get it. He’s not black, he’s “multicultural.” His mom was white. His dad was African, not African-American. But it really makes me uncomfortable when things like Obama’s middle-class upbringing and his Harvard education are discussed as factors that lessen his blackness. I mean, I didn’t grow up with anyone who went to Harvard either. I grew up with a bunch of rednecks who now mostly work retail and factory jobs. And so I understand why those rednecks might have a sort of knee-jerk hostility toward a John Kerry type, but 1) one cannot excuse voters who are unable to see through appearances and recognize their own best interests, and 2) no one ever says that one’s level of education in any way diminishes their whiteness.

And then there’s comments like these, which just make me feel sort of sick inside:

"There's a feeling that if white folks like him so much he must not be good for us. For some blacks it's a turn-off," said [radio show host George] Wilson.

Look, I’m not going to speak for white people. But certainly there are white voters who would never vote for a black man for the office of president of the United States. We don’t know how many. Certainly there are also white voters who WOULD vote for a black man for president, as long as he isn’t

crazy

crazy

or fuckin' crazy.