An interesting essay by British critic Yasmin Alibhai-Brown that tells it like it is
"Obama would be nobody – he wouldn't exist – without his mum. She wasn't perfect, and made mistakes, but it took a brave lass to defy the social order, as we read in his autobiography. It is only by calling himself "biracial" loudly and proudly that Obama can integrate his mum into his success story."
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Alibhai-Brown's commentary does touch on some of the issues or general rationale for some to want to keep Obama monocultural. But it doesn't seem to touch on the most obvious issue, which is that his presence as a prominent biracial figure points to the notion of whites who are also black, but are only known as the former, whether through individual passing, or family erasure of a shared black ancestor. Very few so-called white people in the U.S. will say that they have a black ancestor. Sometimes a Latin ancestor (from Spain or Portugal) is O.K., but even then (through at least the sixties) there is a preference to hide the past, even if it is one or two generations removed, and even when everyone that is intimately involved with the person knows the "secret."
At the same time, I am glad to see that the Independent's coverage of Jackson's recent comments focuses in part on how biracial identity plays out in U.S. politics.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/black-power-struggle-i-want-to-cut-his-nuts-out-865071.html
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