Barack’s invisible family

I noticed this column  by Eugene Kane in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this weekend, and it brought together some thoughts I’d been having.

In some ways, Eugene Kane hit the nail on the head here with “Dear Dad: Another barrier just crumbled”, but in other ways, he reinforced a point that some folks are beginning to notice. Barack Obama “had the option to be described as biracial, he decided to identify himself solely as a black man” . He went on to describe his grandmother as ” a typical white person” . I’m not sure what that is, but I suspect that is how he would also stereotype me…..and I imagine that this preconception would be how he would govern me as well. I note with interest the fact that his white mother (also part Native American), and maternal grand parents have all but disappeared from mention, though they raised him after his father left. His step father, an invisible Indonesian, is never mentioned at all. Just the fact that his absent father was black seems to be important. Sigh.

 

Mr Kane also noted“so many African-Americans of a certain age are so hungry to cast a vote for a president who looks like them”.Ok, maybe I can understand that to a degree, but I wonder how Democrats and the Obama campaign itself are unable to understand the concerns of someone like me. I am white, with two Asian children. From what I have seen and heard, Barack Obama has no room in his life for people like me. He could have been an All-American candidate, with insights into varied backgrounds and a foundation built on a truly inter-racial upbringing. Instead, he seems to be quite blind to people of color….well, at least to people of a color other than the one he has chosen for himself. It saddens me that one barrier that Barack Obama did not crumble (and may have actually solidified) is the one that seems to separate races into colored crayons in a box.

 

If you have any reason that I should feel comfort from this fact, I’d love to hear it.