DISQUS

I couldn't get through the clip. I was starting to get angry. That stuff is some of the most irresponsible propaganda, specifically designed to call out all those kooks with arsenals in their cellars to revolt against the government. When does treason start to apply, really?

I guess it was supposed to be funny, I just didn't find it funny. I just found it sad that among us, this is what passes for funny.

So chilling and frightening...

I thought the Ikeepitcool sketch was funny, finally. They're trying to find their footing on lampooning the president-elect, and I'm glad to see they're getting closer to funny instead of farther away. The YouTube guy is better, but Armisen is still pretty good. Doesn't matter to me that he isn't black - he's got a good enough resemblance when he's playing Obama, certainly no worse than Amy Poehler's resemblance to Hillary Clinton. Actually, it might not count to some, but Armisen is mixed - not with black, but I think part of the reason he's doing Obama is because like Maya Rudolph, who is also mixed, his features are kinda ambiguous, so he has more versatility in who he can look like. I've watched the show for years, and it seems they use who they've got instead of going out to find one person for one role. Any black person they'd hire would have to be able to do more than a Barack or Michelle impression. I'm just saying. Nielsen and 'nem don't care whether I'm watching Saturday Night Live or not, so unless I boycott the sponsors, it doesn't matter if I watch the show despite their not having a more diverse black cast. I'm not saying more black involvement wouldn't be good. My knickers just aren't in a bunch about it. To be honest, I'm more concerned that the Apollo doesn't come on after the show anymore. For the record though, I hate to see Kenan doing women. I hate it. Where is the next Ellen Cleghorne?

Why shouldn't they network with Those Kind of People? They've had to network with all different kinds of people of various races and classes to get where they are, so why should Those Kind of People be excluded?

I don't know much about Those Kind of People firsthand but I know a lot about ego. I don't see exclusivity going anywhere, really. Whether it's the old moneyed families or the nouveaux riche, somebody's going to find a way to be stank to people without their social connections and money. I also don't think the Obamas are the kind to ignore Those People if they know they can benefit from the friendships. If O can put Hill in his cabinet, he can use some formerly indifferent beige fundraiser to scratch his back in exchange for bragging rights that they spent time hobnobbing in DC. Even so, I'm really glad the Obamas aren't Those People. I can relate to Michelle much more because of it.

Actually I heard somewhere that AKA recently made Michelle an honorary member. Don't know if it's true though.

Bless you, dnA.

That was a great lecture. My mom's sister and brother both died of AIDS related complications. It was most likely drugs that did it. I know AIDS is real.

This is exactly why I shook my head when Barack Obama referred to himself jokingly as a "mutt." Because people would take their junior-high school level understanding of genetics as applied to dogs and start getting into race/biology arguments like this one. You're saying that people of mixed race are genetically better. You couldn't have even stopped there, because you went on to intelligence. Bell Curve ring a bell? What you said was racially charged. Mixed race = better.

That is not the same thing as simply saying that genetic variation is good. We talked about genetic issues like Tay-Sachs and sickle cell down the thread - it's already been acknowledged that sometimes doctors can use someone's racial background to infer a disorder associated with a lack of genetic diversity. But the problem isn't that more people aren't RACIALLY mixed, it's that they aren't genetically mixed - these aren't one and the same thing. You're drawing a quick and dirty shortcut to get there. And it's more like prejudicial, inside-out eugenics than anything else to me.

Can you not see the irony in following your penultimate sentence with your last one? Really. Can you not see it? *Shrug* Maybe you can't. Okay here goes. You say that prejudices are rampant in this forum. Then you say that mixed heritage seems to make a better product. If that ain't a prejudiced statement and-a-half! You just got finished maligning people with more homogeneous racial heritage as less healthy, less smart, and genetically inferior. Ever heard of eugenics? Yes, you're attempting to turn it on its head, but the logic is as specious, offensive, and prejudicial as eugenics ever was. A broad gene pool is a good thing, yes, but that isn't indicative that, in particular, a multi-racial gene pool is the pinnacle of genetic success. It's just one possibility of a broad gene pool.

And by the way, people who refer themselves by nationality tend to do so because they are outside of their home nation. No wonder a South African might call themselves South African upon coming to America. But at home, they might go by Afrikan, or black, or colored, or Afrikaaner, or Zulu. It's all in the context.

No one here is attempting to say that Barack Obama has no European ancestry. Neither is Obama himself. When he calls himself black, he's just getting in where he feels he fits in. If he likes it, I love it. You have an intolerance problem because you are unable to allow him to self-identify. He and we are not the ones with the problem.

"...the ideal mold of "the talented tenth" is not EVEN where Barack and Michelle came from..."

Yes! I have personally been relishing this fact for some time now.

And that knowledge is exactly why doctors want to know your background, because it could help with a diagnosis. A Nordic patient is less likely to have sickle-cell. An Ashkenazi Jew or a Cajun is more likely to get Tay-Sachs. It's worth the doctor's time of day to ask their patients their race depending on symptoms because race and ethnicity are risk factors that describe the likelihood of certain issues possibly lurking in your gene pool that could be there because of the self-identification and same-race coupling in one's family tree. Racial classifiers are about more than just phenotype and racism.

I identify with "Black", but it's not because "white" people see me as "black," I see it as a practical term that's a good shorthand for how I culturally identify in solidarity with other African descendants in this country. There is nothing wrong with that. I suspect that may be the same reason Obama uses it. It does say something about who I am - a descendant of Africans, just like Obama, Tiger Woods, and my parents. I hope racial categories never become such a thing of the past that people are actually offended that I want to proudly say that I and my future children are black. Fiona, the barriers to human respect aren't the labels we brandish, it's the belief of some that they have the right to disrespect others based on their labels.

It's been my experience that some West Indians don't like to check "black" because in this country, it's shorthand for "Black American," and that's not who they are - they have a different culture altogether. I'm not saying that this is your issue, but I will say that even countries in S.A. and the West Indies have their own local racial classifications. This is just how ours works here. The classifications are not going anywhere, though they may morph over time, like the names of neighborhoods, based on changing perspectives. But humans have been classifying since Adam named the animals. It's just names. Like you said, a societal construct. How is it any worse for people to identify with them than it is for you to reject them altogether? Ultimately, the labels only matter so much.

When Obama says he's Black, he is not rejecting his mother and grandparents, he is telling people how he culturally identifies.

When Black people claim other people of African descent, it is akin to welcoming or embracing kindred, and I don't understand where your puzzlement over that comes from, as we've been doing it since crossing the Atlantic.

"...[H]alf black African and half American ( white European ancestry)"
Soooo... American means white European ancestry? No. That's where you lost me, Barack Obama what he identifies himself to be.

Exactly. Why all the qualifiers?

I never expected Obama to be a hardcore liberal. A simple read of his proposed policies during the campaign could nip that notion in the bud.

Thanks for this!

I do think Michelle has given up quite a few things. Her job as a mother is now more complicated than it would otherwise be if her family hadn't gone national and global. Her job as a wife is now more complicated because she has to share her man, not with a regular job, but with a planet.

Yes, she is very educated and capable. Her Ivy League education wasn't cheap or easy to come by. But I think the whole reason the Robinsons gave her this preparation was so that she can make whatever choices she wanted to make as an adult. It's apparent that she's chosen to prioritize "wife" and "mother" over "professional," for the moment, and I'm happy about that. Isn't that what the civil rights and women's rights movements were about - giving people the freedom to make their own choices? Her husband will only be president for 8 years at most. If she wants to pursue other endeavors, she has plenty of time, but she only has one finite shot at making Malia and Sasha's childhood as good as it can be. She only has one finite shot at helping her husband with the hardest job on earth. That's her choice, and the only way I would have a problem with it would be if it was obvious that she was being purposely held back. It seems to me that noone has told her to stay in any particular place - she seems genuinely excited about and committed to being family-centered as opposed to being involved in the presidency or committed to her former career.

So yes, she's giving up 4-8 years of career advancement and/or career fulfillment, in a sense. But I don't see it as "giving up" so much as "trading off" one thing for something else that means more to her. So few black women (or women, period) in history have had the opportunity to make that decision. We are now in an age where some fortunate among us can make that decision.

Of course they should go to private school. Every kid should get the best education their parents can afford to give them. Malia and Sasha aren't guinea pigs.

He's probably taking Jarrett with him to Washington. Jackson Jr. will always have my respect for telling his dad that HE needs to keep hope alive after that crude hot-mic fiasco.

I am pollwatching all day, except when I take a break to go and vote. I'm in Pennsylvania, and it's really needed here.

Eighth graders can't vote yet.

My favorite part is when Jerry Stiller puts his head in his hands without saying a word.

Colin Powell read the Republicans their rights a few conventions ago, long before there was a Barack Obama on the national radar. He is a conservative and a good soldier. That's why he did what he did at the UN. He was given faulty intelligence. I respect him and I always have. I'm not surprised by his endorsement. It was fair and well reasoned. But unlike many have said, I don't think he's doing this because Obama is black and he is black. I think he's doing it because he doesn't think McCain should be in the top job. He has seen first hand how the extremist Conservatives have pulled his party into full-blown craziness. This convention has shown him that they've already pulled a formerly more independent minded McCain into full-blown crazy. And given what he has personally given to this country, I believe Colin Powell believes that we cannot endure another four more years of the extremist Conservatives yanking on the nation's highest office. I suspect that if John McCain actually represented the reasonable Republicans, Powell wouldn't have endorsed Obama. But like a growing number of Conservatives, Powell is put off by Palin and the exclusionary/racist campaign rhetoric that McCain has chosen to go with. I respect Gen. Powell even more now than ever, because he is catching hell for this from the wackjobs of his party, and I think what we're seeing is a real soldier's valor.