Is it strange that Obama and Harris are each only part black, but people refer to them as being black?

If we are like “black people can do everything” (which is true, of course), why are the political figureheads of that progressive dimension only half black?

And, beyond that, the black half of each is not even African American! Harris is African Jamaican, and Obama is African African.

If anything, in retrospect the birther thing back then seems like it may have been some absurdist well poisoning on totally valid criticism of Obama’s real heritage vs the media optics of same.

I thought civil rights was for African Americans? Why have all the political figureheads African Americans have, or have been, rallied behind, not themselves been African American at all?

Quite strange.

▲ defrost 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Is it strange that Obama and Harris are each only part black, but people refer to them as being black?

Yeah - the "One Drop" PoV was beyond strange:

  The one-drop rule was a legal principle of racial classification that was prominent in the 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of Black African ancestry ("one drop" of "black blood") is considered black (Negro or colored in historical terms). It is an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of proportion of ancestry in different groups.

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule

> I thought civil rights was for African Americans?

It was for the benefit of anyone sent to the back of the bus, forced to drink from other fountains, lynched, etc. That included minorities other than "classic Black" and all the people treated as Black despite not appearing black.

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pfannkuchen 2 days ago | parent [-]

I’m confused. From tone you seem to be comparing what I’m saying to the one drop rule as if this doesn’t support what I’m saying, but it does support what I’m saying.

Why are progressives using the one drop rule?

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defrost 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Why are progressives using the one drop rule?

I suspect you meant to ask "Why are people using the One Drop Rule" ? - in no way is its use exclusive to ( USofA? ) "progressives".

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pfannkuchen 2 days ago | parent [-]

No, I mean it is in line with the general character of conservatives to use the one drop rule, so I’m not surprised if they are using it.

Why are progressives using the one drop rule?

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defrost 2 days ago | parent [-]

They're not using it directly .. they're part of a wider society that has been using it less and less explicitily for hundreds of years - children speak as their paerents do.

What has faded is the habit of exactly breaking down the bloodlines of anyone of mixed blood - mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, hexadecaroon and such terms are no longer in common use in this epoch.

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pfannkuchen 2 days ago | parent [-]

So your theory is that the people who seem to center their worldview on racial equality (along with equality of the sexes) are subconsciously using racist language?

I mean, that’s possible, but I think a more plausible explanation is that the bulk of them are just getting riled up by media and aren’t really paying close attention to what’s going on.

	▲	defrost 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> So your theory is ... No. That's clearly your framing - don't draw me into your strawman. > but I think a more plausible explanation is that Or, that a majority people in the USofA that are described as black in the USofA have embraced that term, own it, and have used Black Twitter etc. while those adjacent to them ( the "progressives" ? ) use that term as for the most part the "black people" are comfortable with and haven't told them to bugger off and stop using it. As happened with "ginger" and "nagger".

▲ gedy 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Late to reply, but assuming you are not American, Black folks in America are quite a spectrum of mixed race from their history. It's not unreasonable to call/identify themselves as black in this situation. I would not extrapolate to the extremes like some repliers are talking about "one drop", etc. That's not practically what the situation is.