Do the White Kids Have to do This, Too?

Consider these Backgrounds

Barack Obama:

• Columbia University
• Harvard Law School, first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review
• Notably successful community organizer
• Constitutional law professor, University of Chicago
  
• Effective state legislator for seven years, popular on both sides of the aisle
• History-making U.S. Senator

Sonia Sotomayor:

• Princeton University
• Yale Law School, editor of the Yale Law Journal
• Professor and Lecturer at Yale and Columbia
• Federal judge for the past 17 years, nominated for positions by both Democratic and Republican presidents
  

Colin Powell:

• Four Star General
• National Security Advisor
• Only African American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• First African American Secretary of State
  

Bill Richardson:

• Congressman
• Ambassador to the United Nations
• Governor and Chairman of the Democratic Governor's Association
  
• Secretary of Education
• Harvard Professor
• International Diplomat

I began with this list just by looking at President Obama and Judge Sotomayor, both of whom have such similar biographies. As I was putting together their list, I also though of General Colin Powell, who provides a representative from the right. He reminded me of Governor Richardson, who also has exceptional foreign policy bona fides.

What all four of these individuals represent are successful and socially accepted minorities with exceptional resumes. Success at Ivy League universities. A diversity of experience. The ability to excel at complex task. Great respect among colleges. Looking at them, I can't help but wonder, why don't we require the same from potential white leaders?

Consider George Bush, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. By now we all know that Bush was able to go to Yale and Harvard in large part because of his father. He did not perform particularly well at these schools, and went on to be a rather unsuccessful business man. John McCain also performed poorly at the Naval Academy, although he did earn our nation's respect by showing genuine heroism as a prisoner of war. He went on to become a long-time U.S. Senator. Sarach Palin didn't do poorly at just one college - she went to five in six years to get her bachelor's degree. Of the three, McCain is the only one who can make a real claim to being a better than average elected official.

Would we accept such a resume from a non-white public figure?

What if Barack Obama was a sub-par high school student, but was admitted to Columbia and then to Harvard only because they needed to fill a quota of African Americans and didn't care who they got? What if when he got to those schools he performed poorly? What if as a community organizer he had run the organization he lead into bankruptcy and chaos? What if as a state legislator and U.S. Senator he had done very little of note? Would he still be President of the United States?

Or, what if he had attended Michigan State and Temple Law school - two quality schools with much less prestige - and still performed very well there? Would we have as much respect for him?

What if Sonia Sotomayor had struggled at multiple schools over six years to get her bachelor's degree, barely made it out of law school, barely passed the bar, and, a year and a half ago stumbled into a federal judgeship? And what if, during that brief time as a judge, she came under fire for ethics violations? Would she still be a legitimate possibility to fill a Supreme Court vacancy?

Or, again, what if she did very well at a less notable school? How would we look at her?

Now, go back to my original question - why don't we hold white people to the same standards? Why is it that non-whites must be exceptional - better than all the rest - in order to qualify? Why, when it's OK for whites to be good, do blacks have to be great? Why would a John Edwards cross the threshold of acceptability as a presidential candidate before Barack Obama? Why Joe Biden over Bill Richardson? How are Republicans questioning the qualifications of literally the most experienced SCOTUS nominee in 100 years?

And, what does this mean for me, and the thousands of non-whites like me who don't go to Ivy League schools, and who will likely work "regular-people" jobs when we graduate? For all the hoopla and national "good jobs" that surrounded President Obama's election, I still wonder "can I be president of the United States? Can I as a black man with a less than 4.0 GPA from a semi-public, North Philly university really be president?"

Why do we think it's a good thing to tell little black boys that they can be president if they work hard like Barack Obama? We don't tell them they could be president if they slack off like George Bush. The "Be Like Barack" movement is nothing more than an acceptance of inequality: "You still have to work twice as hard to get as far as white people, but you can still do it, so it's all good."

It's not all good.

Scratch that.

It ain't all good.

LC21?: Why Focus on Minorities?

Haven't had one of these in a while. Here are some questions to think about.

Why, when we talk about race, do we focus on minorities? Why do we always talk about what non-whites can or can't do?

Why, during the presidential campaign, was the focus on how Barack Obama's blackness would help or harm him? Why was their not a focus on how John McCain's whiteness would help or harm him?

Why, when we talk about education do we discuss what minority students need or deserve, or how they contribute to their own successes or failures? Why don't we ask the same of white children?

Why do we spend so much time trying to figure out what's wrong with black people? Why don't we try to figure out what's wrong with white people?

Why do we focus on understanding Latino culture, or what it means to be black, or the life of Asians? Why not talk about what it means to be white?

Why don't we talk about whiteness?

NY Post Cartoon - Racist?

What do you think? Is this racist?
I think there are a few options for explaining this political cartoon:

1. Straight-up racism: Throughout history, African Americans have suffered the insult of being portrayed as monkeys. Some may see this cartoon as an attempt to call the first black president, President Obama (so fun to type) a monkey. It is Obama who was the chief promoter of the simulus bill. This also wouldn't be the first time that Obama has been called a monkey. Check out YouTube for a quick reminder of the presidential campaign.
2. Extreme ignorance: Maybe the creator of the cartoon and the Post's editor didn't know the history of comparing blacks to monkeys.
   
3. Connecting politics to current events: Apparently, some lady's pet chimpanzee recently went wild and decided to attack her. In an effort to save her, police officers shot the chimp dead. Maybe this was just a lame attempt at combining two news stories.
4. The monkey wasn't meant to be Obama, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or just Democrats or liberals in general.

Personally, I think anyone who doesn't know better than to publish a cartoon that potentially portrays the first black president as a monkey who's just been assassinated doesn't deserve a job. In an economic downturn like this, I'm sure that there is some unemployed person out there with more than three working brain cells, giving them the mental capacity to avoid this catastrophe.

Why Can't Barack Be Black?

My question is simple.

Why do so man people - mostly whites, but some blacks - have such a problem with the idea of Barack Obama being black?

I hear so much, "He's half white," "His ancestors weren't slaves," "Why do we talk about him as a black man, not as a white man?" Before he called him an Arab, Rush Limbaugh called Obama (and Halley Berry) "Halfrican" in reference to their mixed heritage.

Why is it that, in a country where it is a fact of life that many, if not most, African Americans have some non-African ancestry, so many are obsessed with Obama's non-Africanness? Why are people so uncomfortable with him being black?

I have my on hypothesis in answer to this question, but I'm interrested in what others think. Leave your answers by commenting on this post, and then I'll be back with a follow-up post.

Why does Rush Limbaugh Need Obama not to be Black?

This man should have his voice surgically removed. Conservative radio shock-jock Rush Limbaugh lamented over media coverage of Barack Obama as an African American, because, according to him, Obama's lineage is Arab, not African.

Read More: Media Matters

Aside from the absurdity of claiming that an American born U.S. citizen of African heritage is wrong for self-identifying as an African American, Limbaugh is particular offensive just for the fact that he believes there is such a thing as "African blood" or "Arab blood."

Does he also believe that any white person with "a drop of black blood" is not white because their purity has been compromised? If he believes that there is such a thing as "African blood" or "Arab blood" does he also believe that people of different races are inherently and biologically different? And, why has he shown such a preoccupation with this issue? Remember it was Limbaugh who branded Obama and Oscar-winning actress Halley Berry as "halfricans," a reference to their multi-racial backgrounds. Why does Rush Limbaugh need Obama not to be black?

Gifted Children

I'm sitting here watching the Today show and they're doing a segment on child prodigies. I have one question: WHERE ARE THE BLACK CHILDREN?

Why don't we ask why black children are not often found in stories about these groups?

They define a prodigy as a child under ten years of age who is performing at an adult level. So what if a child has the ability to do such a thing, but they don't have the opportunity to use it? What if they have the ability to we a world class violin player by the age of five, but never get the chance to pick up a violin?

Why don't more people naturally ask these questions?