Bill_Murray_Fan_7383 Posted:

Read The Big Sea, by Langston Hughes. For almost all of American history, nobody cares about what a person’s heritage is: if a person’s skin is dark enough, they’re black.

Hughes was a man of mixed race, who was able to pbum himself off as Mexican during his visits with his father…but he was still segregated as a black man in America. Even when he traveled to Africa, he was heartbroken that “pure-blooded” Africans wouldn’t accept him as a black man.

But now that Obama is a president, people suddenly care about his white background. It’s like changing the rules in the middle of the game.

Personally, I think it’s even more astounding to realize that we elected a mixed-race person to the presidency. As Hughes pointed out, prejudices against those from mixed backgrounds come from both sides. However, Obama was embraced by the black community instead of being shunned from it. Even in Kenya, where Obama’s father was from and racial divisions run deep, Obama has been embraced as a local hero. Minimizing half of his background disguises how significant these things really are.