Work in Progress, Worklife, Workplace, TIME

February 5, 2008 3:10

Obama: biracial like me. Only not.

Posted by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen | Comments (8) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

Growing up in an international community made up of dozens of nationalities, I developed a keen ear for accents. I could not only differentiate the Swiss from the German, but also discern the Chinese by way of Taiwan by way of California.

Maybe that's why it jarred me to hear Barack Obama speak to a church audience before the primaries in South Carolina. His inflections, his word choices and his pronunciations were—how else can I put it?—black. It was particularly obvious because the radio report followed that clip with one in which he spoke to a group in Michigan. There, he sounded much more—how else can I put it?—white.

We in the media presume blacks identify with Obama in large part for his race. But he isn't just black. He's biracial, and I along with my millions of mixed-race brothers and sisters can tell you that's a different thing entirely. Like Obama, I grew up in a community that tolerated and even celebrated biraciality. Like Obama, I came to understand only in college that America saw me as a minority. Like Obama, I struggled to accept and then ultimately embrace that label.

The thing is, I'm not half black. I'm half Asian. And in America, that too is a different thing entirely.

Gary Kamiya tackles this sticky topic today in Salon. The piece is long, but stick with it; it's as beautifully, thoughtfully and passionately written as anything I've read on that site.

Kamiya really is like me: half Japanese and half white of European descent. However, he had always opted out of identifying with one group or the other. In search of clarity about the presidential race, Kamiya read Obama's autobiography, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. The book convinced him to vote for the candidate, but moreover it drew him to examine his own conclusions on racial identity. Kamiya writes of Obama,

In the end, he succeeded in his goal: To put it crudely, he made himself black. But at the very moment he attained his goal, he also transcended it. Obama had too much integrity to believe that "blackness" in itself meant anything, so he simultaneously became black and something irreducible to color. By so doing, he kept faith both with his fellow American blacks, who have been forced by racism to consider their own color as a constituent part of their identity, and also with people of all races.

He adds:

The essence of Obama's politics, his call for reconciliation and unity, is thus deeply grounded in the long and painful creation of his own double identity. It is, almost literally, sealed in blood -- the mixed blood, black and white, that flows through his veins. With Obama, the movement is always toward a double affirmative. Not neither black nor white, which is the way I and many mixed-race people identify ourselves, but both black and something larger.

Reading Kamiya's impassioned essay, I no longer squint at Obama's fluid accent switcheroo, which until now had struck me as cynical. Like many multiracial Americans, Obama despaired over his racial identity. He earned his right to belong to both worlds. And by sharing his battle, maybe he can wipe out the need for the rest of us to choose.

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Reader Comments (8)

tornados28:

You don't half to be black or half black or half anything to change your accent depending on the audience.

There have been many a time when Hilary Clinton's accent miracously changed when speaking in front of a black audience.

You may recall her infamous speach she made a couple of years ago in Harlem when she denounced the Republican Party as "plantation party".

She had an amazingly strong black accent.

Posted by tornados28 | February 5, 2008 5:23 PM

Carmen Van Kerckhove

Lisa, thanks for posting this.

I thought Kamiya's piece was interesting, and definitely better than his last one on Obama, which I discussed at length on my podcast awhile back.

But his use of words and phrases like "colorblindness" and "transcending race" really make me cringe.

To quote one of my favorite blogs: "Saying that Obama transcends race reaffirms the notion that blackness is a liability, a condition that has to be overcome before one can succeed."

Posted by Carmen Van Kerckhove | February 5, 2008 5:33 PM

Susan:

This phenomenon is nothing new. "Code switching" - ever heard of it? We adjust our vocabulary, and even our accents, in order to adjust to our social environment.

Posted by Susan | February 5, 2008 7:06 PM

khaaaaan:

It's interesting that discussions of race and "code switching" are most controversial across the white/african divide. Would it be considered as unusual for a Chinese-American candidate to address Asian constituents in Mandarin or Cantonese?

Posted by khaaaaan | February 6, 2008 3:22 AM

EmilyStarbuck

That's an interesting post. One thing I keep telling people (and keep getting laughed at for) is that it's ridiculous that there's so much talk of Obama being a black man, when in fact he is biracial. To me, it seems like this gives him even more power to unite. He's straddled across two cultures, and I feel like that should help him. I just think it's strange that there's so much talk of his blackness and how amazing it is that an African American might be president when he's only half black. Maybe there's no difference to most people. It just seems significant to me, in terms of uniting a divided country.

Posted by EmilyStarbuck | February 6, 2008 11:07 AM

Elizabeth:

I just don't understand how you and the Salon writer reach these particular conlusions about Obama's ability to transcend race, if indeed, this is what he does. I can't say that I got that from his book. Is there some "reading in" going on here? Also, it will be nice when a person's gender, race or ethnicity is of no significance at all. We're not there yet. If Obama has transcended race, I doubt the same can be said of all the voters in the land. Likely, we will see more about this issue if Obama sets up against McCain in the Presidential elections. I don't look forward to that part ... I hope it doesn't get nasty but I can't believe that it won't.

Posted by Elizabeth | February 16, 2008 2:18 AM

Elizabeth:

Posted by Elizabeth | February 16, 2008 2:18 AM

toome

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Posted by toome | August 20, 2008 5:30 AM

About Work In Progress

Nina Subin

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen is a staff writer for TIME. She blogs about work. Why? Because TV was taken. Think of her as the grumpy colleague ranting by the water cooler.
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Email her here:
lisa_cullen at timemagazine.com