Barack (by the way that is the correct spelling of his name and not Barak Obama) was born in America, that’s how he can run for president. If you were born in another country, even if you lived in the U.S. all your life and are a naturalized citizen, you cannot legally become president of the United States (this is a law that will probably be thrown out by the Supreme Court, if it’s challenged by some one, because it’s unconstitutional).
So, Barack Obama is as black as they come, as American as they come, which makes him an African American. Right? The black community should be going crazy over him, since he is the first black person to have a serious shot if not at the presidency, but the vise presidency, right? Ladies and gentleman, if you said yes to either one of these questions, you might be surprised to learn that a lot of African Americans don’t agree with you.
These people’s concern is that Barak Obama is “only” a second generation American, and that while his father is a black African from Africa, Barack is not, what you might call, a “traditional” African American. I am guessing it’s because Barack has no connection with the slavery of Africans in the New World. I am a white guy, but I was born and raised in Europe and I am outraged by this attitude. I have lived almost half my life in the U.S. and I still get the quintessential comeback line of natural born idiots: “yeah, well, I was BORN in America.” It doesn’t seem to matter what my kind does, how long we have been living in the U.S. and that we have received our citizenship, we will always be second class citizens. I believe that Senator Barack Obama has fallen victim to the same rhetoric. However, Barak has to deal with an added twist. He can’t trace his roots back to the time of slavery, so is regarded by many as not a true African American. I think that’s absurd. First of all, if you are a black person living in America, and even if your ancestors were brought here on slave ships, you my friend have absolutely nothing to do with slavery yourself. I have met a sweet old black lady who told me that her great-great-grandmother was born in slavery. People! No one alive today has anything to do with it, unless you are pushing 150 years of age. This is absurd!
I think the criticism must be coming from the Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson types (I don’t actually know if they have any objections against Obama) who have been involved with black politics a lot longer than Senator Barack Obama, but never managed to amount to anything much. They are jealous that he is as popular as he is. The sad thing is that they use the little exposure they can get to negatively impact Barack’s bid for the presidency not caring if they hurt African Americans as a result. Pathetic.
I believe it is a great feat that an African American is doing this well. He is intelligent and well spoken. He has some good points. Barack Obama may not have a serious shot at becoming the next President of the United States, but he could make a good vice president.
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