Imani Perry on Barack Obama

Authentically Black:
The Real Question about Obama’s Candidacy
By Imani Perry

A number of recent articles from legitimate news agencies have been devoted to considering why African Americans don’t consider Barack Obama a “real” black person. They quote individuals who mention that his ancestors were not from West Africa, (like those of most African Americans), that he is biracial, that he is only a second generation American on his father’s side.

I find it alarming that people are so ready to assume that these isolated individuals represent the perspective of some critical mass of African Americans without any evidence to support such an assumption. In fact, if one looks to the history of African American politics and activism, there is no tradition of particular suspicion for non-native born or descended Black Americans. Think about Shirley Chisholm, Louis Farrakhan, Marcus Garvey, Harry Belafonte, and Stokely Carmichael. None of these people ever suffered from “authenticity problems.”

I don’t believe the authenticity problem lies with African Americans. The authenticity problem lies with white Americans. The real question is: Why have White pundits, journalists and newscasters been so eager to comment on Obama’s being biracial and the son of an immigrant, rather than his history of civil rights activism or his long time involvement in African American social and political communities? Does it reveal a desire, among whites, that he not be authentically black (whatever that means), but somehow “different?”

The fixation on Obama as “different” appears to be an effort to exceptionalize him. He is seen as acceptable, in part, because he is considered to be unlike other African Americans, and in particular, African American men, who have been so widely commented upon as a “social problem” in the most prestigious news media in recent months. Joe Biden got in trouble for saying what many Americans are thinking, and that is a much bigger problem than a foot in the mouth.

Read the full essay at Afro-Netizen

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Imani Perry has been on the faculty of Rutgers Law School since 2002, where she teaches classes in Contracts, Law and Literature, and Critical Race Theory. She is a scholar of African American legal and cultural studies. Dr. Perry's first book is entitled: Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop, Duke University Press 2004. She is also the author of numerous articles in Law and Cultural Studies.