The Race Issue

"[Palin's] demagoguery has elicited some frightening, intolerable responses. A recent Washington Post report said at a rally in Florida this week a man yelled “kill him!” as Ms. Palin delivered that line and others shouted epithets at an African-American member of a TV crew." - NY Times 10/8

I don't see Obama as black. This is not because I'm colorblind, above race -- if only. It's because, like Obama, my father was black and my mother is white; I too grew up in the West where races are more integrated (if you're an optimist, "ignored" if you're more skeptical); and as was pointed out in the excellent New York magazine issue on race this past summer, I grew up understanding my race more intellectually than experientially.

And unlike Obama, but perfectly explained in Danzy Senna's essay "The Mulatto Millennium" in the wonderful book Half & Half, I grew up "passing" as white and enjoyed all the corresponding privileges. I did not check the race box on my college applications. It was not until I moved to New York that I began exploring what my mix means to me, simply because I didn't need to.

So probably because of all this, I don't see a black man when I look at Obama. I just see someone I sort of identify with, you know, aside from the whole Harvard-educated, served in the Senate, going to be president thing. I am not a subscriber to the one-drop rule. I see multiracial as a whole separate category.

I know this is enormously unpopular because 95% of the racism I've personally experienced in my life has been from black people because I am not black enough, I don't date enough black men, I'm not frustrated enough with my hair. To all the haters, I do love hip hop and wearing track suits, so step off.

I could go on and on and on about race, but for now I'm content to leave that to the years I spent exploring and writing about these issues with the New York theatre collective Mixed Company, to The Assimilated Negro, to Randall Kennedy, to Danzy Senna. Although I'm sure, considering our candidate and my own unique position on the color spectrum, I'll be writing about it again in the not so distant future.