Tiger Woods is an exception - a black man succeeding in the overwhelmingly white world of professional golf.
Barack Obama is an exception - a black man succeeding in the predominantly white world of Presidential politics.
... and if you reflexively think those two statements are true, then you're not the person you'd like to think you are. The 'truth' of the two statements is a holdover of a slave-era mindset.
If I refer to Tiger Woods as a black man I'm not trying to be offensive, just stating a fact. Correct? If you prefer I can substitute African American. So, Barack Obama is an African American male. Nothing to see here ... just an inoffesnsive fact. Or are they facts?
Tiger Woods is Asian and Barack Obama is white. Do you doubt this, and if so, why? Tiger Woods has twice as much East Asian blood as African. Obama is half white, half black - yet both are considered black men. Is it because we hold the notion that 'one drop of blood' makes you black?
DNA pioneer and Nobel Prize-winner James Watson shocked and appalled many with his comments last fall concerning blacks:
"All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really"
Of course Watson is not the first scientist to make such claims. More than a decade ago The Bell Curve spurred a firestorm of controversy and claims of quasi-scientific racism.
And yet, isn't the idea that 'one drop of blood' makes you black just as offensive? It's an unexamined remnant of a white, KKK-like desire for racial purity. Just one drop of African blood taints your otherwise white family gene pool. Remarkably, this is the law of the land - not just social conditioning. Reinforced by the Supreme Court as recently as 1986 (479 U.S. 1002).
Racial issues are still the 800 pound gorilla of the American experience. In politics we still analyze political races with an eye towards a possible Bradley Effect. Many blacks never expect to see a black President in their lifetime - Barack Obama notwithstanding. It's a reminder that we freed the slaves, but we never freed our minds.
Oh, as for James Watson, appearances can be misleading. Turns out after analyzing his DNA, James Watson is a black man. Who'da thunk it?
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Added after the first half-dozen comments.....
I'm mixed-race myself. My ancestry is predominantly European. My surname is Irish, but my paternal grandmother was Native American (Ojibwe). It's amusing that so many jump to the conclusion this is a troll. I have as much Native American blood as Tiger has black ancestry. He's black, but I'm not indian. The 'one-drop rule' is unique to the United States - and used only in regards to African descent.