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“Beck claimed that Obama “is colorless,” adding that “as a white guy … [y]ou don’t notice that he is black. So he might as well be white, you know what I mean?” In addition, Beck said: “I guarantee you, there will be blogs today that will have me being
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“The more you understand your racial prejudices, the less they will show up at work. In the mean time, I polled a few people, and here are a some annoying things that white people say that African Americans wish they wouldn’t.”
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“As is often the case with the more subtle forms of racism, the problem isn’t the way Smash and his friends are treated; it’s the limiting assumptions they face about what they can and should do. Fighting back, though, has its risks”
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Thanks Rob! “Only one student was completely European. The rest discovered they had some mixture of European, Native American, Sub-Saharan African and Asian ancestry.”
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Thanks Tereza! “From the seducing tribesman to controlling sheik to the bomb-wielding terrorist, Hollywood has consistently broad brushed Arabs with caricature and cliché. But can an Arab be an American film hero?…Hollywood is starting to believe that
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Thanks Tariq! “for a growing number of young Chinese people, dark skin now means having the money to afford foreign holidays or Western-style glamour.”
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Thanks Kim! “Even supporters acknowledged that the bill to make English the official language of Nashville was mostly a symbolic slap at illegal immigration. But even that was too much for Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell. He vetoed the measure”
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Thanks Rob! Article about Maggie Q. “Getting roughed up in China is just part of the ride for many young Asian-American actors, who have been finding it easier to get started abroad than at home…”
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
m wrote:
This is in reply to Beck’s statements on Barack being in his (Beck’s) words “colorless.”
Like his producer Stu, I’m confused. I think “some” people need to stay away from the race issue. In fact perhaps most people should, becuase we aren’t even making sense anymore.
Is Beck trying to say that he can only relate to a colorless man, that because he finds Barack “colorless” he’s more palatable as a presidential canadidate? That’s what I’m getting from his statements which means he is no different that Biden, which makes him a
fool just the same. I would really like for Beck and Biden to define black and explain what they mean be “colorless” and “mainstream” and “clean.”
I think I know what their response would be but am curious to know if they have the guts to articulate it.
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 9:49 am ¶
kim wrote:
“CNN’s Beck: Obama is ‘colorless … he might as well be white’ - Media Matters…”
How in the world can this discussion take place and white people (no qualifiers here, not whites-so-inclined, not those-who-do-so, but the majority of American whites) understand themselves to be ‘neutral’ in the holding of these race-based assumptions and reactions?
When you hear this simple exchange, whereby one must negate the on-the-face group affiliation which Barack can make (not exclusive, though not precluded) in order to even “see” his physical form, and which will routinely be made FOR him by others, you just lose all hope for a wholesale White American population with a conscious interior life that speaks to and informs their public interactions with … well, damn near everyone.
Are there exceptions? How would I know…where are their voices?
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 11:57 am ¶
Rob wrote:
That’s what I’m talking about.
How can whites honestly believe that they’re just the observer when it comes to racial issue?
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 12:36 pm ¶
Nina wrote:
Some white people actually think it is being progressive to say something like Beck did. “Oh you aren’t really black” or “your practically white,” like it is a compliment. Like them seeing you as they see themselves is the ultimate in acceptance. I am sure we have all had our moment with this type of comment. Unfortunately Obama will have to continually answer questions of black authenticity throughout his campaign because in the U.S. there is only one way to be black.
Don’t know if you all linked to the article on Limbaugh labelling Obama and Halle Berry as “Halfrican American.” The worst is that he initially presented the term in a quote ascribed to Obama but later retracted. How does this man continue to be on the air!
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 12:37 pm ¶
bertie wrote:
I think this is really a divide and conquer tactic. Beck is an admitted conservative. So he’s not really trying to compliment Obama or boost his chances of winning. He’s merely trying to slyly raise the issue of Obama’s blackness, or more to the point, percieved and much media hyped lack of blackness, to create a wedge between Obama and his pressumed black voter base.
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 2:20 pm ¶
kim wrote:
I have no time for Blacks who would argue this “authenticity” matter, as it IS simply diversionary tactic.
While in New York last week, I spoke with two senior citizens (Black) who were unaware that Barack’s mother was White. They could not have cared one bit, and asked, matter-of-factly when I told them about the discussions up and down the net, ‘well, who really cares? Is that an issue? Who is arguing about this?”
Bertie…the succintness was hard-hitting. Got it. Thanks.
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 4:27 pm ¶
merq wrote:
“I have no time for Blacks who would argue this ‘authenticity’ matter, as it IS simply diversionary tactic.”
While I see your point, I also have nothing but derision for idiots (this means you too, Ms. Debra Dickerson) who claim Obama isn’t “black” because of his Kenyan father.
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 9:50 pm ¶
fgs_sfdg wrote:
Not sure how to do this. The Ching Chong Song incident (see angry Asian man or Reapproppriate) has been irking me lately. I’d like to see some opinions from this board if possible in a dedicated thread.
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 9:59 pm ¶
kim wrote:
Merq!
Dickerson rubs me the wrong way. Period. I’ve argued this elsewhere, and, thank goodness, almost no one seriously entertains Dickersons’ ideas. (There are some, though, and I have to say, I’ve gone the route of discussing with them his material/physical Blackness, and his ideological similitude with the Black community and issues therein, and found a chorus of others willing to do the same.)
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 10:32 pm ¶
korshi wrote:
It’s funny how Obama’s race is turned into such a big issue… For the liberal’s it’s like a way to boost their credentials, for the conservatives (like in the weaselly, incredibly inarticulate dialogue in the article) it’s something to chip at; either he’s too black, or not black enough.
I don’t know very much about him, but from what I have read he seems like a good candidate purely on the basis of his policies and past political actions. Having said that, the fact that his father was Kenyan, and that he’s married to a woman who is (uncontestedly) African American, and has written a memoir where he reflects on the issue of race in America, suggests that regardless of what label you want to put on him he’s likely to understand racial issues a lot better than most politicians.
The issue isn’t whether or not he’s Black, it’s that “Black” is a word which is used for too many different things, and Obama is in one of those places where the inadequacy of the terms we currently use to discuss race become apparent.
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 12:00 am ¶
Rob wrote:
This reminds me of Dave Chappelle’s skit on “racial claiming.”
I honestly laughed my ass off when Asians claimed Wu Tang Clan as Asian.
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 8:55 am ¶
kim wrote:
“The issue isn’t whether or not he’s Black, it’s that “Black” is a word which is used for too many different things, and Obama is in one of those places where the inadequacy of the terms we currently use to discuss race become apparent.”
I think that short-sighted of you, korshi.
The issue is Blackness, yes, and all that is means (I went into a long pitch on this in another thread, the Obama: Black-While-Articulate post, here at Racialicious), but when said Blackness IS the fake subject, being distractedly placed into the consciousness and dialogue of what Obama brings to the table, it is all about him being Black (and not Black-not-Black, or Black-but-less-than-that-group-Black, but Black-from-Africa:the-genesis-of-the-spectrum-of-Blackness).
All the shades of Black stuff is just a mindgame, a trip someone wants us all to take.
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 11:55 am ¶
bertie wrote:
What up Merq. Funny you and Kim should mention Deb Dickerson, there is a video on Marc Lamont Hill’s website of her on Stephen Colbert’s show. Its pretty hilarious how her arguments about Obama’s lack of ” blackness” crumbles under his pointed questioning.
Posted 17 Feb 2007 at 4:52 pm ¶
Colin wrote:
Dickerson: “I’m so confused…”, “I think you may have me there…”
I felt bad seeing her squirm on screen like that.
Are there people even contesting the idea that he’s at least partially African-American, though? Black, maybe not, but do not lie to me and say he’s not African-American.
Posted 17 Feb 2007 at 9:34 pm ¶
merq wrote:
What’s good, Bertie. Yeah, I saw that video. A (Desi) friend/co-worker sent it to me with the subject “You think you’re black?”
I’m Nigerian, so of course, we shared a good laugh at the pure anihilation she suffered at Colbert’s hands. But of course, like most laughter tied to race issues, it wasn’t without its a marked bitterness.
Oh, America. How I love thee.
Posted 17 Feb 2007 at 10:48 pm ¶
kim wrote:
I cannot believe that this has not been mentioned yet, and I think it gives evidence to the weight of the ruse and its effectiveness at diverting our attention from core issues with the larger body politic which would seek to divide our attentions, and break us up into polarized camps:
In this month of February, Black History Month, our we still speaking of ourselves as having been descended from slaves? Merely slaves?
We are descended from the enslaved African - and that is the point of ALL of this.
The Negro/Colored/Black/African-American has reached for, and writhed away from, many labels in our incarnation as sub-American, with the tag African-American making its reach for a global, land-based point of origin, to place our distracted spirits and minds in a sticking place, and to have us hold our heads high in global politics, and away from a shameful beginning as a shackled being.
That shame is not ours to bear, to be burdened with. That shame must be toted about by those whose names were on the links, attached to the yokes, whose symbols formed the brands which burned into our skins, whose brand of shame burned into our minds and mores.
We are the descendants of the enslaved African, and Obama is the African we claim to be from the homeland we call Mother.
How can he not be ours?
How can he not also be his mothers - An American woman.
Here at Racialicous, we have to embrace that he is the bi/mixed/double-racial being of a union of a White and a Black, and wait for him to label himself.
Obama belongs to Merq, he belongs to me, to Lyonside, to Lyonside’s mother and my husband, to my grandmother (with her Irish surname, Homeric first name, and caramel skin), to Carmen, Jenn, Aaron, Colin, Sewere, Just Wondering, Jeremy Pierce, Brad, Rob, Bob Dylan, Glenn Beck, and hell, even our good friend Bill.
Posted 18 Feb 2007 at 4:11 pm ¶