Race Matters: Barack Obama

I find it interesting the oversimplified way in which Barack Obama is oftentimes characterized. However, it is interesting to me that he really doesn't fit into the neat little boxes that people (both black and white) want to put him in. For example:

• He is not simply a black man. Dude is mixed. White mother and African father.
• His dad isn't the typical American black man and his dad is the typical black man. Barack's father isn't the typical black man in that he grew up in Kenya, spent sometime in school in Hawaii and at Harvard, and ended up going back to Kenya. He is the like the typical American black man in that he was not present in the home to raise his child (according to government statistics only 35 percent of African American children between the ages of 0-17 lived in a home with two married parents)
• Barack was raised by a single white mother and later an Indonesian stepfather
• Barack spent significant time living overseas as a child
• He went to college (not the typical experience of the average black man in America)
• He went to Harvard (not the typical experience of the average person in America)
• At Harvard he was the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review

I do acknowledge that Barack is black, but a qualification must be given to that observation. His life experiences are far different than those of most black men in America and any characterization of him must be done with that in mind.