Acting White: Obama, The Candidate

The challenge of making assimilation of advancing behaviors a legitimate goal in Black minds cannot be understated. This legitimacy is needed from the earliest age, even before babies say their first word or take their first step. It addresses the paradox that is alive and well in the Black community – the quest to be individual ‘first’, while the group hangs on to behaviors that keep too many near last.

Nowhere is the legitimacy of Black opportunity questioned more than in the ability of the country to elect Black leadership, particularly a head of state. Until this happens there will always be the lingering question of whether it is a forbidden position. If the ultimate dream for a little White boy or girl is the presidency, is it also a bona fide dream for little black boys and girls? Barack Obama’s success as a candidate squarely proposes that America is ready to express the full confidence and reward for ability and hard work, regardless of race. Blacks can no longer claim de facto second class citizenship, and Whites are no longer automatically guilty of hiding a superiority agenda.

Throughout his campaigning there were questions from all sides on whether Obama was Black enough, or too Black for consideration. Many people rightfully challenged the questions themselves, but like it or not, they represent the state of thinking. Race does matter in America, but does it matter enough to elect reduced leadership, with the consequences this brings to our lives? In the end, after all of the politically correct and incorrect airings, Obama showed that he is indeed a Black man of mixed heritage, but not one whose ‘baggage’ precludes representing everyone enthusiastically. It may be that because he was born of two ancestries, one black, one white, he reached a harmony of the two that aides his leadership ability, and just maybe the country's too.

James C. Collier

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