Barack Obama and Kamala Harris as black

[lpetrich]

Both Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are clearly mixed-race, but they identify as black.

Barack Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., is from Kenya, while his mother Ann Dunham has mostly British ancestry. He has joked about his mixed parentage. A Mutt Like Me | HuffPost Life quoting Barack Obama as stating that "But obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me." He has also jokingly called himself "O'Bama", suggesting Irish ancestry.

Kamala Harris's father Donald Harris is from Jamaica, and he is likely mixed-race. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, is from Tamil Nadu, India. KAMALA HARRIS’ JAMAICAN HERITAGE - UPDATED - 14.01.2019 - Jamaica Global Online and also this fun bit: DONALD HARRIS SLAMS HIS DAUGHTER SENATOR KAMALA HARRIS FOR FRAUDULENTLY STEREOTYPING JAMAICANS AND ACCUSES HER OF PLAYING IDENTITY POLITICS - Jamaica Global Online When someone asked her if she smoked marijuana, she responded “Half my family’s from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?” Her father was not very pleased.

If the D.A. Is of Half-Asian Descent, Why Does the Press Label Her 'Black'? - Poynter
Race and the Law Prof Blog

Tiger Woods describes himself as 'Cablinasian' - "a blend of Caucasian, black, Indian and Asian".

Race in a Genetic World | Harvard Magazine

“I am an African American,” says Duana Fullwiley, “but in parts of Africa, I am white.” To do fieldwork as a medical anthropologist in Senegal, she says, “I take a plane to France, a seven- to eight-hour ride. My race changes as I cross the Atlantic. There, I say, ‘Je suis noire,’ and they say, ‘Oh, okay—métisse—you are mixed.’ Then I fly another six to seven hours to Senegal, and I am white. In the space of a day, I can change from African American, to métisse, to tubaab [Wolof for “white/European”]. This is not a joke, or something to laugh at, or to take lightly. It is the kind of social recognition that even two-year-olds who can barely speak understand. ‘Tubaab,’ they say when they greet me.”

So she goes from black to mixed-race to white.

 

[Politesse]

Both Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are clearly mixed-race, but they identify as black.

Barack Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., is from Kenya, while his mother Ann Dunham has mostly British ancestry. He has joked about his mixed parentage. A Mutt Like Me | HuffPost Life quoting Barack Obama as stating that "But obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me." He has also jokingly called himself "O'Bama", suggesting Irish ancestry.

Kamala Harris's father Donald Harris is from Jamaica, and he is likely mixed-race. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, is from Tamil Nadu, India. KAMALA HARRIS’ JAMAICAN HERITAGE - UPDATED - 14.01.2019 - Jamaica Global Online and also this fun bit: DONALD HARRIS SLAMS HIS DAUGHTER SENATOR KAMALA HARRIS FOR FRAUDULENTLY STEREOTYPING JAMAICANS AND ACCUSES HER OF PLAYING IDENTITY POLITICS - Jamaica Global Online When someone asked her if she smoked marijuana, she responded “Half my family’s from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?” Her father was not very pleased.

If the D.A. Is of Half-Asian Descent, Why Does the Press Label Her 'Black'? - Poynter
Race and the Law Prof Blog

Tiger Woods describes himself as 'Cablinasian' - "a blend of Caucasian, black, Indian and Asian".

Race in a Genetic World | Harvard Magazine

“I am an African American,” says Duana Fullwiley, “but in parts of Africa, I am white.” To do fieldwork as a medical anthropologist in Senegal, she says, “I take a plane to France, a seven- to eight-hour ride. My race changes as I cross the Atlantic. There, I say, ‘Je suis noire,’ and they say, ‘Oh, okay—métisse—you are mixed.’ Then I fly another six to seven hours to Senegal, and I am white. In the space of a day, I can change from African American, to métisse, to tubaab [Wolof for “white/European”]. This is not a joke, or something to laugh at, or to take lightly. It is the kind of social recognition that even two-year-olds who can barely speak understand. ‘Tubaab,’ they say when they greet me.”

So she goes from black to mixed-race to white.

Being black in America isn't about the pseudoscience of biological race; it is a social identity foisted involuntarily on anyone whose skin is too dark, whether they have one African grandparent, a full set, or they moved here from Nigeria two months ago. I'm not going to contest anyone "claiming" an identity that they have no true choice whether or not to claim. What are Obama and Harris going to do, walk into a fascist rally and be like "as a fellow White..."?

It is worth questioning why it is that our most prominent Black politicians are almost always mixed race, and raised in affluent households. No one likes to talk about it even if they know it, but even "whiteness" is a bit of a red herring disguising the true class structure that runs this country; being a descendant of the British royal family is and almost always has been an unofficial requirement for the White House. Barrack's mother was his tie to King James' line. All but two American presidents have had their own.

A brief note about your other anecdote:

When a friend of mine visited Mali recently, he noted that "Toubab" actually meant something more akin "foreigners with money" and included Chinese foreigners (a common sight these days) as well; White, or "Blanc", referred almost exclusively to Touaregs and other Arab-connected Malians.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Being black in America isn't about the pseudoscience of biological race; it is a social identity foisted involuntarily on anyone whose skin is too dark, whether they have one African grandparent, a full set, or they moved here from Nigeria two months ago.

Or embraced and exploited, such as with Rachel Dolezol.

I'm not going to contest anyone "claiming" an identity that they have no true choice whether or not to claim. What are Obama and Harris going to do, walk into a fascist rally and be like "as a fellow White..."?

I don't know much about Harris (maybe that will change if she wins the Dem nomination), but Obama was actually very good regarding it in comparison to many. He spoke often in inclusive and non-divisional tribal terms. His speech about there being not a black/white, or red/blue America, but a United States of America still impresses me after all these years. He wasn't perfect my any means, but he didn't push division and identity politics nearly as much as many other politicians. And he was usually quick to play down rather than play up the fact that he was the first "black" president, instead putting focus where it should be, on his policies. He is a great speaker, and I think has few equals in that regard.

It is worth questioning why it is that our most prominent Black politicians are almost always mixed race, and raised in affluent households. No one likes to talk about it even if they know it, but even "whiteness" is a bit of a red herring disguising the true class structure that runs this country; being a descendant of the British royal family is and almost always has been an unofficial requirement for the White House. Barrack's mother was his tie to King James' line. All but two American presidents have had their own.

The rich and privileged seek to distract with the race issue. They often hide behind it.

 

[repoman]

ADOS—which stands for American Descendants of Slavery—seeks to reclaim/restore the critical national character of the African American identity and experience, one grounded in our group's unique lineage, and which is central to our continuing struggle for social and economic justice in the United States.

 

[lpetrich]

Being black in America isn't about the pseudoscience of biological race; it is a social identity foisted involuntarily on anyone whose skin is too dark, whether they have one African grandparent, a full set, or they moved here from Nigeria two months ago. I'm not going to contest anyone "claiming" an identity that they have no true choice whether or not to claim. What are Obama and Harris going to do, walk into a fascist rally and be like "as a fellow White..."?

If one is light-skinned enough, one can easily pass as white:  Passing (racial identity). Kamala Harris I think could easily do that, but I'm not sure about Barack Obama. A certain Rachel Dolezal has tried to pass in the opposite direction.

It is worth questioning why it is that our most prominent Black politicians are almost always mixed race, and raised in affluent households.

As to being raised in affluent households, is that any different from most other politicians?

As to being mixed race, most American blacks are at least somewhat mixed race. So one should ask: are such politicians mostly light-skinned? Are there any dark-skinned ones? As dark-skinned as (say) Eddie Murphy or Grace Jones.

No one likes to talk about it even if they know it, but even "whiteness" is a bit of a red herring disguising the true class structure that runs this country; being a descendant of the British royal family is and almost always has been an unofficial requirement for the White House. Barrack's mother was his tie to King James' line. All but two American presidents have had their own.

Seems almost like some conspiracy theory. I must ask:
(1) Where's the evidence?
(2) Is that anything unusual?
Most US presidents have British last names, and the exceptions I can recognize are Eisenhower, Trump (German), Kennedy, Reagan (Irish), Van Buren, Roosevelt (Dutch), Obama (Kenyan). Last names indicate paternal ancestry, so many of those with non-British last names could have plenty of British ancestry provided by female ancestors. Like Barack Obama, whose mother was Ann Dunham.

GenWeb.JRaC: Genealogy of 1.5M individuals, including Royalty, US Presidents, the Bible, plus free research tools has some genealogies of US Presidents, and it's hard to trace them back more than a few generations.

As to descent from British monarchs, that would mean those monarchs having some non-royal children like illegitimate ones or ones who dropped out of royal status. But for sufficiently far back, there has been plenty of time for those children's descendants to become mixed in with the rest of the population. So being descended from some medieval king isn't very meaningful if just about everybody else in Britain is also descended from that king.

A brief note about your other anecdote:

When a friend of mine visited Mali recently, he noted that "Toubab" actually meant something more akin "foreigners with money" and included Chinese foreigners (a common sight these days) as well; White, or "Blanc", referred almost exclusively to Touaregs and other Arab-connected Malians.

Most Chinese people are very light-skinned, enough to be "white". Thus to black Africans, they'd be honkies.

 

[Politesse]

As to being raised in affluent households, is that any different from most other politicians?

This is entirely my point. Your average white American has no more chance of reaching the White House than your average black American; the whole issue of race has always been, and has never been anything other than, a sideshow to convince people to hate one another in lieu of the forces that equally oppress and exploit them both for their labor and their votes.

No one likes to talk about it even if they know it, but even "whiteness" is a bit of a red herring disguising the true class structure that runs this country; being a descendant of the British royal family is and almost always has been an unofficial requirement for the White House. Barrack's mother was his tie to King James' line. All but two American presidents have had their own.

Seems almost like some conspiracy theory. I must ask:
(1) Where's the evidence?
(2) Is that anything unusual?

It's not unusual, and it is not a conspiracy, because it isn't really that much of a secret if you really look into it at all. A few hundred affluent families have controlled the reigns of power in this country since before it was even founded. You can marry in, but you cannot easily break the system. That they are all "white" is not incidental, but it isn't the cause either, merely a phenotypical trend which was useful to them because it gave them a pretext for creating a slave class, while maintaining the full support of the democratic majority.

Most US presidents have British last names, and the exceptions I can recognize are Eisenhower, Trump (German), Kennedy, Reagan (Irish), Van Buren, Roosevelt (Dutch), Obama (Kenyan). Last names indicate paternal ancestry, so many of those with non-British last names could have plenty of British ancestry provided by female ancestors. Like Barack Obama, whose mother was Ann Dunham.

Yes. It's not actually a secret that most presidents have had ties to the British nobility, most thorough presidential biographies will point this out. How exactly do you think capitalism works? I'll give you a big hint: it strongly favors those who, for historical reasons, already possessed large amounts of capital at the time when the system came into being.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The twins were born three months premature. 2lbs 4oz and 2lbs 7oz. They went straight to Neonatal ICU, placed in separate bays. When my wife recovered enough to walk, we visited. I went into Bay Two. The nurse there saw me at KJ's shelf and filled in the last blank on the admitting form. "Baby is white."
Wife went into Bay Four. KE's nurse picked up her form. "Baby is black."
It was a good week before someone noticed they were not quite twins....

Been really hard to take any of it seriously ever since...i mark all forms 'human' these days.

 

[bilby]

Race, as it is used today, is a purely social construct.

From a genetic perspective, literally everyone is mixed race. It's meaningless.

Racial purity (of any kind) is a pseudoscientific concept with no anchor in reality; It should have died in the 1940s, but like so much of pseudoscience - astrology, phrenology, chiropractic, homeopathy, etc., etc., it has proven to be remarkably resistant to dying out, even after it has been soundly demonstrated to be utter nonsense.

Racial identity is as inborn and immutable as sports fandom. People can assume that they know your place from a brief glance at your colours, but they are wrong as often as they are right.

 

[Trausti]

Race, as it is used today, is a purely social construct.

From a genetic perspective, literally everyone is mixed race. It's meaningless.

Race isn't genetic - until you misclassify some cancer cell lines.

 

[Trausti]

Race is genetic. Most just refuse to accept the science. But ultimately it's who your ancestors were. Who is your extended family? Under that rubric, neither Obama or Harris are Black Americans as understood to be descend from American slaves. But so what? Didn't affect Obama.

 

[bilby]

Race is genetic. Most just refuse to accept the science. But ultimately it's who your ancestors were. Who is your extended family? Under that rubric, neither Obama or Harris are Black Americans as understood to be descend from American slaves. But so what? Didn't affect Obama.

Your last sentence contradicts your first.

Race is exactly the craziness that tells everyone that a man with a Kenyan father and an Anglo-Irish mother shares a common cause and identity with people who are the grandchildren of slaves whose ancestors came from West Africa.

It's wrong as often as it's right - so it's a totally valueless hypothesis.

Genetics is genetic. Race isn't about genetics at all. It's about appearances - which are of very little value in assessing genetics.

Genetics is Dunning-Kruger central, particularly for racists. It's all far more complex than most people realise.

 

[Toni]

Bottom line: In the US, if Kamala Harris and Barack Obama were not famous, every traffic cop would immediately identify either individual as black. Not speaking with an accent that is readily identifiable, they would be identified as Black Americans. If Jim Crow laws were still in effect, they would be targeted under Jim Crow and restricted to certain hotels, hospitals, schools, neighborhoods, drinking fountains, parts of the movie theater, etc.

I would wager a guess that most Europeans seeing either (assuming non-famous) would see them as Black as well.

 

[lpetrich]

Barack Obama? Yes. Kamala Harris? I find that rather doubtful. I think that she could easily pull off passing as a white woman.

I've found this curious article on her: COMMENTARY: Rating Kamala's Blackness by C. Ellen Connally - CoolCleveland

I recently visited with several of my cousins who grew up in a small town in South Carolina in the 1950s. Having spent time there on summer visits, I always thought they had a nice life. All these years later they revealed a dark side of their educational experience.

Their stories were not of mistreatment by white southerners or even the fact that they attended a segregated school. I learned how they were frequently bullied and intimidated by darker-skinned classmates. Because my cousins were light-skinned and had straight hair and didn’t look like the rest of the people in the class, they were objects of scorn.

...
For those who don’t know about her lineage, Kamala Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan, immigrated to the United States from India. A college student in her teens, she came to America alone and proved to be one tough cookie. She got an education — a Ph.D. — and married an immigrant from Jamaica who was black. When Donald Harris left her, Shyamala raised her two girls in black neighborhoods. She had black friends. She demonstrated for black causes and attended a black church. Kamala had surrogate black grandparents who created a second home for her and her sister when her mother worked. She attended segregated schools in her childhood and an historically black college. She joined a black sorority and has a wide circle of black friends, some of whom are relatives of mine.

Compared to Barack Obama who spent part of his youth in Indonesia and the rest with white grandparents in Hawaii and didn’t live on the United States mainland until college, Kamala is a virtual hood rat. But according to her critics, because she is a first-generation American and her great, great, grandparents were not slaves, she’s not black enough.

So she's culturally black even if she has enough Caucasoid ancestry to pass as a honky. What should we call someone like that? A reverse Oreo?

 

[lpetrich]

I concede that "reverse Oreo" may be interpreted as an insult. Something like "Oreo", "coconut", "banana" and "apple" for nonwhite people who act too "white". Though these terms are used as insults, what they reflect shows us that there is not much genetic mental difference between races -- if any.

 

[ronburgundy]

Race, as it is used today, is a purely social construct.

From a genetic perspective, literally everyone is mixed race. It's meaningless.

Race isn't genetic - until you misclassify some cancer cell lines.

Racial categories and the assignment of people to them is not determined by genetics. If you are like 99.9% of humans, neither you nor anyone on the planet knows anything about your and anyone else's particular genes as they relate to racial categories. So, it is impossible for 99.9% of the planet to think or speak about the concept of race and their or anyone else's membership in it's sub-categories on any kind of genetic basis. Yet, people think and speak about race all the time, they judge and act towards others based upon race all the time. Therefore, the actual concept of race and it's application to thought and action has virtually nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with socially manufactured groupings based mostly upon relative skin tone and the skin tone of one's parents.

Thus, the actual concept of race that is referred to 99.9% of the time is one that is not an objective feature of individuals but a context dependent social inference about individuals.

 

[Derec]

Being black in America isn't about the pseudoscience of biological race; it is a social identity foisted involuntarily on anyone whose skin is too dark,

That may have been the case in the past, but these days the black identity based on "one drop rule" is claimed voluntarily. And even if that drop is questionable or outright missing, that identity may still be claimed.
See Rachel Dolzeal and Shaun "Talcum X" King.

It goes for American Indians like Elizabeth Warren too. 1/1024 Indian == Indian in the Harvard Faculty Directory.

It is worth questioning why it is that our most prominent Black politicians are almost always mixed race, and raised in affluent households.

The 'affluent households' applies to most politicians I would say.
And most prominent black politicians are not recently mixed race (pretty much all black Americans are mixed to some degree overall though).
But it is notable that both strong "black" (or should that be "blackish") candidates for presidency so far, Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are not only 1st generation mixed, but that the black part of the swirl is not black American but Kenyan and Jamaican respectively.

No one likes to talk about it even if they know it, but even "whiteness" is a bit of a red herring disguising the true class structure that runs this country; being a descendant of the British royal family is and almost always has been an unofficial requirement for the White House.

You go down far enough in the past and somebody is either going to be the ancestor of nobody living today or of very many people in their geographical region. And with royalty it is more likely to be the latter. I would say almost all Brits are descendant form some ancient king or other. So "descendant of British royal family" == "British". Not to mention that the current British Royal Family are really German, and in fact related to the Kaiser Wilhelm II. No really, he used to vacation in England as a lad visiting his relations.
They changed their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor (after the castle) during WWI when being linked to Germans was not good policy.

When Obama was first elected, it was noted that he was 10th cousin of George W. Bush. However, people have an awful lot of 10th cousins given that these relationships expand quasi-geometrically.

Barrack's mother was his tie to King James' line. All but two American presidents have had their own.

Who were the two?

 

[Derec]

Tiger Woods describes himself as 'Cablinasian' - "a blend of Caucasian, black, Indian and Asian".

And some black race warriors were none too pleased that he is not calling himself "black".

 

[Derec]

As to being mixed race, most American blacks are at least somewhat mixed race. So one should ask: are such politicians mostly light-skinned? Are there any dark-skinned ones? As dark-skinned as (say) Eddie Murphy or Grace Jones.

I do not know how one classifies 'prominent' but obviously there have been dark-skinned Congressmen and the like.

Also, and:

Spoiler alert: He still became president in the epilogue.

 

[Politesse]

I had heard that Van Buren and Jackson were the exceptions, but apparently even that is inaccurate; they've all had a link:

https://realitybloger.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/how-all-presidents-are-related-to-king-john/

 

[lpetrich]

I had heard that Van Buren and Jackson were the exceptions, but apparently even that is inaccurate; they've all had a link:

https://realitybloger.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/how-all-presidents-are-related-to-king-john/

I looked at the purported genealogies and those genealogies are unsourced. Someone in academia ought to recognize that making far-reaching claims without any real support is a no-no. You also have yet to show that being descended from King John is something special about US presidents, because if everybody with English ancestry is partially descended from King John, then there is nothing special about such descent.

I also have yet to see any evidence of some committee that vets would-be presidential candidates for descent from King John or other British monarchs.

 John, King of England