Barak Obama Criticized for Not Being Black Enough: A Preposterous Non-Issue

In recent 'news' articles, op-ed pieces and blogs (including a handful of sadly popular ones published here on Associated Content), presidential aspirant Senator Barak Obama has been accused of not being a 'genuine' African American and therefore, a pretender of sorts to the right to characterize himself in this way or to expect the support of the African American voters of this country in the upcoming presidential primary elections.

The is only one of the many examples of the pond full of 'red herrings' clouding our ability to see through to the issues, positions and real characters of the contenders for the office of the presidency.

It is said that he is not the 'ordinary' or 'representative' Black man because his birth and growing up experience was international and mixed-race, not bogged down in the tribulations of either the inner cities or of abject poverty. These things are statements of fact about his history. Do these realities this make him, somehow, less of a person of color? Or would someone like to argue that he is a person of no color at all?

Does it seem to any thinking person that Hillary Clinton is an 'ordinary' or 'representative' woman or white woman? Would anyone care to make a case that Mitt Romney is a 'representative' Mormon or John McCain an 'ordinary' ex-POW? Sounds kind of silly when written out as a string like that - Don't you think? What really matters most?

John F. Kennedy was a Catholic. Opponents argued that if he were elected President, the Pope would have undo influence over the political hierarchy of this Country. His Catholicism was not what mattered most about him. Do we regard Franklin Roosevelt as just another victim of Polio? These questions sound silly but relate to the Barak Obama Blackness issue.