Obama the "first black president" is actually not black?

Is Obama the "first black president"?

This has been discussed many times before but I just found an article on this today on yahoo.

U.S. Rep. G. K. Butterfield is a black man that is white. Butterfield, 61, grew up in black family in Wilson, N.C. Both of his parents had white forebears.

Barrack Obama had a black father but was raised by a white mother, white grandparents and Indonesian step-father.

One book, "Black People and their Place in World History," by Dr. Leroy Vaughn, even claims that five past presidents — Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge — had black ancestors, which would make Obama the sixth of his kind.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081213/ap_on_re_us/obama_s_not_black

 

bogus, you have a black president.

Accept it. Get some therapy. And get over it.

Are we at the point now where you are slowly dropping the veil? Not even gonna try to hide your racism anymore? Come on, you can do it.

 

The article was written By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer. How does that make me a racist?

How do we define a person as black? By skin color? In that case U.S. Rep. G. K. Butterfield is a white man raised by black parents.

On the other hand, if we define 'african-american' by family back-ground then U.S. Rep. G. K. Butterfield is black.

 

I don't see it as racist, my brother and I had a similar conversation months ago and we both agreed we didn't care what color he was called as long as he did a better job than Bush.

 

This is not a racist statement...
But what color do you think he is then?

 

Two observations:

I have a close freind who's dad is black and his mom was hispanic. He is considered black.

I read a comment from a young black male that, to paraphrase, said Obama was not black enough.

 

If Obama was born with white skin color like United States Representative Ken Butterfield, would he be considered the first black President?

Both of Representative Ken Butterfield's parents are black.



BUTTERFIELD, George Kenneth, Jr. (G.K.), a Representative from North Carolina; born in Wilson, Wilson County, N.C., April 27, 1947; graduated from Charles H. Darden High School, Wilson, N.C.; B.A., North Carolina Central University, Durham, N.C., 1971; J.D., North Carolina Central University School of Law, 1974; United States Army, 1968-1970; lawyer, private practice; North Carolina resident superior court judge, 1988-2001; North Carolina special superior court judge, 2002-2004; Justice of the North Carolina state supreme court, 2001-2002; elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred and Eighth Congress, by special election, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of United States Representative Frank Ballance and reelected to the two succeeding Congresses (July 20, 2004 to present).

 

My apologies. I should have added more context to my statement.

My statement and conclusion wasn't drawn from this post alone. Read some of his posts and see if you can see what I mean.

Nearly every single post he makes in P&R is an attack or innuendo meant to denigrate Obama's character, sew seeds of doubt about his citizenship, or question whether he's "one of us". He doesn't post in any threads at all if he can't see a way to make it an attack on Obama.

Now there is good old fashioned disagreements about a candidate among different politically affiliated individuals. And then there is blatant hatred for a candidate (now elected President) some unforseen reason.

Now I suppose a similar line of suspicion could be brought about for some of us here when we used to poke fun at Bush on a nearly daily basis. The key difference here is, we did that because Bush isn't the sharpest pencil in the pack. As shown by the past 8 years. So what's bogart's reason?

Now given that background, and having failed at every turn...... he then proceeds to start a thread where he takes a historic moment in our nation's history and tries to sew doubt about that too? He's not black now???

I simply asked the question to see if I could get him to admit it.... And again, it was based on a lot more than merely the context of this thread.

As for the question of the thread itself. I think it's absurd, and even more reason for me to question bogart's motives when he comes up with baseless arguments against Obama..... I think the answer is there to be seen if one were to simply look at the man..... I doubt the first thing that comes to mind when you look at him is "hey look at that white guy".

 

Question...if not voting for him because he is black is racist, how bout voting for him because he is black? I am, to put it lightly, a conservative, gun toting, non baby killing, god fearing, palin drooling, who loves to work and hates handouts, that being said, I am in no way, shape or form, a supporter of obama. However, unlike most politicians in DC I'm willing to look past a lot of the issues and go for what I think is better for the country and not something coming from partisan politics. A lot of things I would be ok to change, except for gun laws (unless you make them less stringent and not more so) and I don't advocate abortion. Other than that, change is a good thing for a country, it keeps you on your toes. He may be black, I may have slightly racist feelings sometimes (go to a Georgia Public school for a year and you will see why, thank got I got back to TX) but I think if he can do a good job, he has my full support. Seriously man, the election is over, we lost, get over it. I'm tired of hearing all sorts of stupid post election "ohh, obama this" or"obama can't be president because.." get over yourself dude.

 

Why is the question absurd? Many people are discussing the question.

Is Barack Obama black?
By Kimberly McClain DaCosta
Harvard University

De-stigmatisation

What I find most interesting about the question of what racial label to assign Obama, is that we are asking the question at all.

As recently as 20 years ago, the question of Obama's racial position would be presumed settled before it was even asked.

In keeping with the one-drop rule - the practice of categorising as black anyone with any known African ancestry - Obama's identification as a black person would be expected, accepted and unremarkable.

The person suggesting that Obama be classified as mixed-race would quite likely have been met with suspicion or a confused look ("What's that?") since for most of US history, in most places, mixed-race identity has not been collectively recognised.

In the last 20 years, however, the collective efforts of mixed-race people in the US to de-stigmatise interracial families and garner public recognition of mixed race identity have been fairly successful (for example, the US government now enumerates mixed race identities).



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7735503.stm

 

If he can smile and point he will do a better job then bush

 

There are some insulted Barack Obama keeps calling himself the "black" President, considering his background and policies.

You can't doubt Clarence Thomas or Condoleeza Rice or Colin Powell.

BUT...

when Obama kept mentioning his "white" mother over and over to appeal to "whites" about his sameness, it came across as marginalizing his so called "black" character.

To me, when the typical "black" American has a "white" mother and grows up in a "white" household, then you can reasonably call Barack Obama a "black" President.

He is the ultimate compromise President for a time when "whites" have shown neither the wisdom, nor patience, nor sacrifice to run the country. Yet, he is "white" enough to get the opportunity.

 

Obama calls himself a mutt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk_uGSBn__c

Barack Obama is seen in this 1960's file photo with his mother Stanley Ann Dunham in Hawaii.

 

Is he also a distant relative of George Bush?

 

He is black, pretty much end of story. There were many who stated back during Clinton's time that he was the first black President but that was clearly not the case. It is pretty clear that Obama is black.

Of course, as many suspected, it is starting to look like a third term for the Clinton administration as the big change involves reviving most of Clinton's old crew.

 

That is completely uncalled for. He apparently doesn't like Obama. Neither do many people. He regularly undermines, criticizes and accuses Obama, but that doesn't make him racist in any way. It's not right to implicate racism on people for not loving Obama.

In any case, Obama is biracial if black is a race. If black is a skin colour, then Obama is black.

 

I have yet to see a post from him that gives a single valid reason for not liking Obama. So he comes off as racist.

 

Ah!
For a minute then I thought you were going to say he was Irish! (joke)
I don't think this is about heritige, this is about the image presented.
Just the physical impression that he makes when he walks into a room.
They other guy looks white regardless of what you have found out. Image counts and first impressions last.

My question is this.
Was Obama put there to deliver us from an engineered "Credit Crunch" soley to start nationalizing things again?