Why isn't Barrack Obama referred to as the Half White candidate?

Question

I hear him called the black and the half black candidate, isn't the half white candidate equaly true?

Answer 1

i call him the black and white candidate but I think Tracy has got it spot on

Answer 2

I was wondering the same thing. I don't know.

Answer 3

because hes black.

sir william that is so true.

Answer 4

In his first memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” Obama wrote:

“I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites,”

Answer 5

because "white" is the norm.  it's just like on the news when they announce that a "female doctor" instead of doctor has won an achievement.  they announce things that feel new or different.

Answer 6

Shhh

That won't sell well to the brothers :)

Answer 7

I think that it is because he has said things such as "To be black was to be the beneficiary of a great inheritance, a special destiny, glorious burdens that only we were strong enough to bear" in his book about his father. In another book Obama explains how, through working with black churches as a community organizer while in his twenties, he came to understand "the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change."  I have seen him say numerous things about how he feels to be black and I have seen him say nothing about being white.

Everything he stands for is to assist blacks to go futher and I understand that.  I am a women and I want women to do well I also though want men to do well.  My major concern is that the pendulum will swing the opposite way and that whites will be oppressed as a form of revenge.  

Does this make sense maybe not but I think that I have a right to be afraid.  More minorities have better chances today to go to school; white kids don't.  I would gladly support Barack if I believed that his true desire was to uplift all of us but I have a bad feeling that those are not his intentions.

I have watched a lot of videos and read on Barack but no where does he say he is half white and that he has any "pride" for being white.  He is ashamed by this and denounces everything about being white except the love he had for his white mother who never left him.  His relationship with Farrahkan is disturbing as with his preacher.  

My grandmother was Japenese and what that part of my family went through after Pearl Harbor makes me cry.  When I visit the camp that they put her in I cry.  The thought that they took her home from her because of her race and she never got it back is sad. However I also feel for my grandfather and grandmother on the other side of my family for they fought in the military during that time and I feel for them and educate myself on their stories.  I would not denounce either side of the story, their pain and their struggles are great.  

Why does Obama turn his back on being white? Maybe he could go further if he spoke of both sides of his family.  Maybe if he reminded us more of his cultural mix and upheld the rights of all those races we would be able to feel that he represents us as a whole.  Sadly he only reminds us when those that he holds close to him bad mouth's the white people.  As if being friends with a racist isn't as bad if you are also the member of the race they are slinging their hate at.

Answer 8

like Tiger Woods, black is in baby!  seriously, I can't stand Obama and think he's a racist anyway - so it's definitely okay by me that he distance himself from his white heritage...

Answer 9

I wish people would stop focusing so much on his race and instead pay attention to what he stands for. Yes, he is biracial but he identifies himself as being black because that's what people see.

Answer 10

Why isnt he referred to as the canidate of change and simply that?It doesnt matter what race he is or isnt it matters what he is going to do for our country as president.

Answer 11

I don't know. I wonder that myself. He's just as white as he is black. Probably more so, from a cultural perspective, since he was raised primarily by his mother.

Answer 12

Would it be too controversial to suggest that subliminally most people still adhere to the one drop method of reasoning?

Answer 13

He refers to himself as half-black because it has more cache.  He would never have won the candidacy without pulling that card...change in this environment means being visibly different and nothing else about that man--his policies, his agendas, nothing--makes any difference whatsoever.  He will go down in history as the first black contender.  Period.  What he does from here on in is irrelevant.  

As for people who say why focus on his colour--his colour is why he is there; his colour is why there was so much press around him; his colour is what has just made history; his colour is what drew his biggest supporter:  Oprah.  Obama has nothing else to emphasize except his blackness--it sells.  Unfortunately, being white carries nothing but a negative connotation currently, so why emphasize it?  For those of us with no choice, well, we'll just keep walking around with our "invisible knapsacks" and bear the brunt of all the horrors committed by our forefathers.  And we won't complain about it either, because we can't.  The only racism that is acceptable now is that against white people.

Answer 14

For some reason, look at birth certificates, if you have an african american blood line, even partial, it will state your race is african american. hispanic people, I believe have the same situation, if one of your parents

is hispanic, the birth certificate will not read caucasion...

Answer 15

Because he looks black. He has a black wife, and spent 20 yrs in a black church. It seems he identifies more with that part of his heritage.

Answer 16

Yes, but it's less appealing, and it goes against the image Obama is trying to sell.

Answer 17

...be careful...  someone out here is going to call you a racist and report your question...  (the lever of tolerance here is somewhere around "zero")...the "politically correct" crying towel crowd might get offended...Oye !

Answer 18

Barack Obama: The Other White Meat

Answer 19

Because to me it really doesn't matter. I just wish it didn't to everyone else.