People Who Are Not Black...

Introducing a delightful new parlor game! To play now, just scroll past my blabbering.

In honor of tomorrow's South Carolina primary, where black voters appear ready to embrace the Obamanomenon, let's take a little walk down memory lane.

Almost exactly a year ago, self-described pundit Debra Dickerson wrote a thoughtful piece for Salon about Obama and race. Her take on what Obama represents for both black and white Americans was carefully reasoned and insightful.

Until this:

"Since the issue was always framed as a battle between gender and race...I didn't have the heart (or the stomach) to point out the obvious: Obama isn't black. " (My emboldening.)

She went on:

"'Black,' in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent... "

Stephen Colbert had Dickerson on soon after the article and its attendant flap. "It sounds to me like you are judging blackness not on the color of someone's skin, but on the content of their character," said Colbert. "Which I think realizes Dr. King's dream in a very special way."

Now, in fairness, I understand what Dickerson was driving at: Obama's heritage makes him very different from most African Americans. (She seems to want to imply that he has no baggage; I would submit that he has different baggage, including the kind that riles Dickerson.) It should also be noted that exactly half of what makes Obama different from other African Americans is that he's also white. So, perhaps Dickerson could have said he's of mixed racial descent or his ancestors were not slaves in this country or he's a newer member of the American black community or he's a brother by another mother...

But to call him "not black"?

Taking this assertion to its many logical conclusions makes for a delightful parlor game. I call it


People Who Are Not Black
(If Barack Obama Is Not Black)

WORLD LEADER TYPES
Nelson Mandela (South Africa)
Kofi Annan (Ghana)

HIP HOP PIONEERS
Slick Rick (England)
Afrika Bambaataa (Caribbean somewhere)
Grandmaster Flash (Barbados)
DJ Kool Herc (Jamaica)


Did you know hip hop was founded not by black people, but voluntary immigrants of African descent?

HOTTIES THE BLACK COMMUNITY HAD BEST HANG ON TO
John Amaechi (England/Nigeria)
Karrine "Superhead" Steffans (St. Thomas)
Idris Elba (England/Sierra Leone/Ghana)

Is Dickerson ready to banish eye candy Stringer Bell?


TWO OF MY FAVE ENTERTAINMENT REPORTERS
Sal Masekela [+ his jazzman, pops, of course] (South Africa)
Lola Ogunnaike (Nigeria)

PEOPLE I KNOW
My Riverside extended fam Zaid, Russom, Astena, Dibora, Helen and Raquel (Eritrea)
Elementary school chums Gian (Trinidad) and Brona (Ireland/Guyana)
Garden class hero Dylan (Belize)

Which cutie planting tomatoes is black and which isn't?

CELEBRATED AUTHORS
Zadie Smith (England/Jamaica)
Claude McKay (Jamaica)
Jamaica Kincaid (no, not Jamaica: Antigua)

SERIOUSLY, THESE PEOPLE AREN'T BLACK?
Marcus Garvey (Jamaica)
Biggie Smalls (Jamaica)

Maybe his murder case will be solved now that he's not black!

MORE MISC MUSIC CELEBS
Rihanna (Barbados)

Seal (England/Nigeria)
Sean Kingston (Jamaica)
Akon (Senegal)

Marleys, all (Jamaica)
Wyclef Jean (Haiti)

CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHORS ON WHOM MY BOYFRIEND HAS CRUSH
Isha Sesay (England/Sierra Leone)

He does have a point.

All those guys hanging out at Oakland cafes (Ethiopia/Eritrea)
Population of African continent (Africa)
Non-American diaspora of African descent (all countries outside U.S. and Africa)


OH YEAH, AND...
Barack Obama (Kenya/Kansas white folks)


Who'd I forget?


Research assistance by Crimson & Associates.

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