Quote Originally Posted by gssixgun View Post
BTW just to point out the obvious, or perhaps not so obvious...
Barak Hussian Obama is 1/2 white and 1/2 black
But isn't it funny that you all chose to call him the first "Black" president....

I find that very telling!!!!
I am sure his Mother is sooooo proud to see that her half of the family tree is being ignored....
Yep, that's 'labeling' for you, there's no logic or rationality to it.

I'm mixed race. So, according to rational argument, I'm neither white nor yellow, and I'm both white and yellow in equal measure.

Except, in Hong Kong the locals called me a 'ghost' (derogatory term for the white man) and in the UK I've been called a Chink.

I married a Jew. My kids are therefore Jewish. Yet the Orthodox would have a problem with that description, and in Nazi Germany they would have been made to put a pencil in their hair, shake their head, and if the pencil stayed in (tight curly hair being a trait), they'd be classed Jewish and shipped off to the camps.

50-50 or not, lables do not follow such prescribed logic.

I think it's reasonable to describe Obama as black. I don't think any right-thinking person is going to disagree. You can try to rationalise it anyway you like, but I reckon 99 out of 100 people will feel comfortable describing him as black.

As I said, there's no logic in labels, but we all use them. To me, Obama is black. That's great, given the history of persecution and slavery. But in my mind the fact that he's the first balck president is not as important as the fact that he was the right choice for a whole load of other reasons. (My opinion, of course.)