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By PEG HICKS-MOORE

The Relevance of Pigment in Politics

Posted 11:46 a.m., February 3, 2008

Here we are in a new millennium, and we still define people first and foremost by what color skin they have. In the United States we have a man running for President who is equally as much a Caucasian as he is a Negro. Exactly fifty-fifty. It used to be you would call someone with such a lineage a Mulatto. I am not sure why this became a bad thing; it was a way in census taking to define your heritage. We do not call him a Mulatto. We do not call him bi-racial nor multi-racial. We are most accurate when we call him an African American as his father was Kenyan and his mother American. But mostly we call him Black. Unless you have been out of the country as far away as the Himalayas, you know I am speaking of Barack Obama.

Am I the only one who sees this as backward thinking? As an antediluvian way to define a person and a negative way to manipulate public ideology? We have an opportunity to relax our sharply defined set of beliefs, values, and opinions that shapes the way an individual or a group such as a social class thinks, acts, and understands the world, but we choose to narrow our scope to classify and typify Obama as Black, with all the connotations that go along with the word. And what is more disappointing is he is letting us.

The connotations of being Black cover a wide spectrum, and vary in degrees depending on whether you are black, white, or also multi-racial, rich or poor, educated or uneducated or if you were raised in the North or the South. All of these will either hurt you or help you, whether you are running for president, or simply trying to live your life as an individual with wants, needs and aspirations just like the rest of us. Whether we be single or multi-racial by birth, why bring so many preconceived notions that label a person, and complicate what could and should remain a non-issue?

Nature vs. nurture.

If the percentage breakdown of Who We Are can be divided into halves of nature vs. nurture, Obama is one forth black by nature, one forth white by nature, thirty-five percent white, five percent Indonesian and another ten percent black by nurture. Why? He was raised by his white Mother for the most part in Hawaii. He then lived with his mother and Indonesian step-father in Indonesia. His father was from Kenya, but left the family when Barack was only two years old. Being curious about his lineage he has visited Kenya, so I give him five percent towards his understanding and consciousness of this small part of him. The other five percent is as a Black American. He did spent some of his formative youth in Chicago, and because his skin is dark he is perceived as a Black man, so there he is.

What does his skin color mean in importance to him becoming our president? Not as much as we think. The questions we should be asking are is he well educated? Very. Columbia University as an undergrad and Harvard University graduating magna cum laude in Law.

Is he intelligent? His eloquent speeches and thoughtful responses to questions of import tell me he is. Is he compassionate to the needs of his fellow Americans? I believe his upbringing has made him an empathetic man who will evaluate domestic programs to bring the most benefit to the majority of it’s citizenry. Does he take a world view economically and environmentally? I think he does understand how the United States fits into the global economy and the necessity of sound environmental planning for the planet. Politically? He sees how Americans have fallen out of favor with other countries and hopes to reestablish confidence in American ideals.

If we are to connect and relate to our fellow Americans, or anyone else, we must become color blind. It is only then that we can eliminate preconceived notions about what makes us who we are, and give everyone a fair chance at being heard and understood.