Who's Black Now? Significance of One Drop

Now that America has finally elected a black president there is a movement afoot to take away the significance of this moment.

I was riding along the turnpike the other day and I struck up a conversation with a token booth worker, who I've talked with for the last fifteen years driving this route.

"So we have a black president, huh?" I said to him as I handed him my ticket and money.

"Why do people keep saying that?" he said. "His mother is white! So he's not just black."

"Okay. But he's still black," I said.

"So Tiger Woods is black, too, I guess," he said, chuckling.

"Exactly. He sure is."

What's very curious to me is that before November 6, America was very clear about the blackness of Barack Obama. ...

I've watched a whole bunch of people who never identified with the black community (like a couple on-air people at CNN) who are now all of a sudden black. And I'm watching a lot of white people who may not have considered the idea of a black man leading their nation now attempting to deal with it by de-blacking President-elect Obama.

Well, too late. The die has been cast. Barack Obama is black and there's no getting around it. And it's not my issue, it's one this country established long before anyone of us were even a thought.

The notion was that whiteness was pure and any drop of "black" blood would taint its purity, thus the one-drop rule.

This rule was particularly handy during the Jim Crow era when blacks were forced to sit at the back of the bus, drink from "Coloreds Only" fountains, and couldn't eat, sleep, dine or be educated alongside whites. There had to be a definition of "blackness" during those times to know who had to be excluded. There had to be distinct separation of the races.

Several states-Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and Utah-adopted the one-drop statute as law. They even refined the definition of blackness to be either one-sixteenth or one-thirty-second black-meaning if a person had a great-great-great-grandparent who was black, then that person was black.

Think of how ridiculous that is. But that was the law of the land in America and accepted in states where it wasn't a law. It wasn't until 1967 when the Supreme Court banned interracial marriage in Loving vs. Virginia and declared the Racial Integrity Act illegal.

So yes, Barack Obama is black, despite having a white mother, despite having white grandparents, white great-grandparents, etc. He may be a cousin of Dick Cheney's, but he's a black man in America.

And now that he's president I find it funny how many people are trying to claim him. I find it interesting how many times I'm hearing about his white heritage -- as some sort of, "See he's not so bad...his mother is white!"

I'll say it again. Barack Obama is black. Sorry, but you can't have him now that he's president. You can have Clarence Thomas as a consolation prize.

We all have a black president. Accept it. Embrace it.

Additional reading
+ Black in North America: The President & The One Drop Rule

Our Lens Sept. 1

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Omar Torres, AFP/ Getty Images

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Venus Williams of the United States reaches for a shot against Vera Dushevina of Russia during day one of the 2009 U.S. Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on August 31, in Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City.

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Host Vanessa Williams performs with dancer Gilles Marini onstage at the 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards at The Orpheum Theatre on August 30, in Los Angeles, California.

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Tom Wainaina recounts the events that lead to his being burned over most of his upper body August 26 in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Wainaina was burned by a group of men during post-election violence in Kenya's disputed 2007 presidential election. Ethnic-tribal violence left over 1,000 people dead. The non-governmental organization (NGO) Concern, in cooperation with local Kenyan groups, has launched a campaign to provide the urban poor with cash grants to start a business or get back on their feet after suffering disproportionately from post-election violence in 2007. The money is transferred to the recipients via a mobile phone which insures a safe and simple financial transaction to customers who don?t have bank accounts. Wainaina is one of dozens of Kibera residents to receive the assistance of a cash grant. Hairdressers, grocery stores and food vendors are just some of the businesses that have been financed through the program.

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People standing near the grave of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) look at the grave of Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) at Arlington National Cemetery August 30, in Arlington, Virginia. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) was buried yesterday next to his brothers President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) after he died of brain cancer on August 25.

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US President Barack Obama takes out his daughters Malia (R) and Sasha (2nd L) and niece Suhaila Ng (L) to shop in the Alleys general store on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, on August 30, 2009.

Jewel Samad, AFP/ Getty Images

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