It still befuddles me when the subject of President Obamas race is mentioned. It also bothered me during the election, when it was assumed that black people were just automatically going to vote for him. Black folk know this not to be true. Regardless of the state of 'the black community' we still take pride in who represents us as a whole. I mean, if Jessie Jackson ran he would not have had any where near as much support of the black vote as Obama did; And in 2004 Al Sharpton could not even get 50% of the black vote. I'm just going to 'let the cat out of the bag' here because I know what I was thinking was shared by many others in the black community.

OBAMA DOES NOT LOOK BLACK...

Now we do have a lighter skinned brother who's held high political office in Colin Powell, BUT Powell is from the Bronx, we didnt even know Obama. We might have seen him during the 2004 democratic convention, we may have seen him on the cover of 'Newsweek Magazine' back then, and we may have known about him beating out black republican, Randolph Keys, for the Illinois senate seat. WE MAY HAVE known those things. Since we really do not care for politics and politicians, until after they have done US some good, we probably DID NOT know those things. I remember the first time I seen Obama I was like, 'they let an arab become a politician, is he related to Bin Laden?'

Yes, Obama was gracing magazine covers back in 2004, right after he won the Illinois senate seat.

During the early stages of the democratic primaries the black vote was held by Hilary Clinton. As time progressed and we seen, and heard, more of, and from, Obama and embraced he message, then did his support from our community rise. Even before that, though, we still questioned.

WAS OBAMA BLACK ENOUGH...

We were like, Barack? What is that? and Obama? Is he Moose-lam? Is he even a citizen?

As much a people perceived that we(black folk) were just going to profess our undying support for the brownest or, in Obama's case, the Beige-est candidate, just shows how much 'out of touch' they out with us. We know thats nothing more than an EXCUSE that racist and republican used, to justify being behind in the polls. Seems like a case of amnesia set in. They forgot how hard Obama worked to get our support because the republicans never gave a damn about our vote in the first place - especially since Bush showed them how to 'nullify' it. It can be said that he willingness to go into our neighborhoods and talk to us contributed heavily to him being president NOW. Had he not done that, he woud not have even made it out of the primaries, so respects his genius of that fact.

Nonetheless, the question of weather he was black enough was answered by the many times he appealed to the issues of black people, or should I say poor unprivileged black people. Most people, outside of the impoverished black community, thought black enough had something to do with bloodlines and culture. Again, there was a failure to realize that as long as he's not pale, his hair is a little kinky and he speaks english with no foreign accent - HE IS BLACK TO US.

Lets just 'hit the nail on the head', if it were not for the historical American assumption, that white only means pale skinned and straight hair; And, lets face it, if it was not SO FREAKIN' COOL to be black, then maybe Obama would prefer to be called white. Better yet, if that same historical American assumtion did not pin so many negative connotations to people who are not 'fair-skinned' then it would not matter at all. Since it does...

MY PRESIDENT IS BLACK