Gray Matters
Two months ago, many multiracial eyes filled with tears and hearts with unprecedented inspiration as America witnessed its first African-American president, Barack Obama, become elected into office. African-Americans, as well as other minorities and ethnicities across the nation, gathered to celebrate a certain atonement—a sentiment the social struggles of the not-too-distant past had left many unaccustomed to. To anyone bearing witness, it was as if they each shared a piece of the presidency to come, and deservingly so. It had never been as apparent that the formerly oppressed races of our ever-assimilating “melting pot” had not been campaigning for the occasion for two years, but collectively, for generations.
But according to Democratic U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, we shouldn’t even be celebrating the election or our president-elect, who has become the symbol of our nation’s social progression. Why not? Because, Rush says, he isn’t African-American—or at least African-American enough. It began in 2000, when the two battled each other for Rush’s congressional seat. Rush cited Obama’s biracial heritage and dignified demeanor as indicators of his “unauthentic” racial identity as a black man, and he has consistently defended the statement since.
It was no surprise then, that Rush’s support went to former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, an African-American with “street cred”; and one that was certainly “black enough” or “authentic” enough to fill Obama’s now empty Senate seat. Burris’ appointment to the Senate was rejected earlier today by Secretary of the Senate, Nancy Erickson, due to an incomplete certification; and it was initially tainted altogether by the Blagojevich indictment, but in digression, the situation raises the important question: what is “black enough”? What makes Burris “authentic,” and Obama not?
The question of Obama’s racial authenticity is not a new one. He has even jokingly been referred to as the “Magic Negro” in some Caucasian, conservative circles. The term refers to the President-Elect’s appeal to the white demographic; he’s neither violent, threatening, nor hypersexual—contrary to common stereotypes and to what qualities even Rush, an African-American himself, apparently attributes to a typical “authentic” black American male. The “Magic Negro” is just “white enough” to ease Caucasian voters’ weary minds, yet just “black enough” to alleviate the burden of their politically correct, “white guilt.”
Other than biracial lineage, what separates Obama from other prominent African-American males of the Democratic Party? Does anyone question Rep. Rush’s “authenticity?” By what criteria can such a classification be determined? Is the “authentic” typecast of black men so disturbingly negative that those who defy it are considered “unauthentic” by some counterparts on both sides of the racial line?
African-American Dawn Trice commented on the racial dilemma stating:
“One cannot deny that there are myriad problems facing some black men. But the black male type is far more diverse than what’s captured in statistics and in the media. A substantial group of impressive black men have been rendered invisible by the knuckleheads.”
Would a Caucasian male face the promise of similar brandings? If there indeed exists an “authenticity” to males of the African-American race, is there one to white males? Hispanic males? What does it mean to be an “authentic” white man? White politicians have been continually disappointing the public for centuries. Why haven’t their recurring faults come to define their racial heritage in its entirety? Have the disproportionate representations of African-American males reaffirmed negative stereotypes to a point that they now define the “authentic” archetype of the entire race?
The truth of the matter is, although Barack Obama has been celebrated as our nation’s first African-American man to be elected to the presidency, he is exactly what his ancestry alludes to. He is not black. He is not white. He is both. He is “gray”; and as evidenced by the continuing arguments over the “authenticity” of racial identity, perhaps a “gray” president is even more socially progressive than a black one—and may be exactly what both sides of the racial line in this country currently need. For the time being, let’s celebrate our American “melting pot”; it just made history.
