From: Colin Response

I am more than fully aware that we live in a society where people are racialized into monoracial groupings. This is due primarily to white supremacy and the oppression of poor and working-class people in efforts to ensure that different groups of people of color and poor whites never see eye to eye. With that said, the homie G-Mitch aka Slavename and I have had a plethora of discussions about President Obama and the ways in which his “Blackness” stood in question amongst many until now. I tend to find that many times amongst people of color, when a person of a particular group is biracial (especially with one white parent) their authenticity comes into question. Many people of color as well as white people see the mixing of races as a “dilution” of purity, that somehow renders them not truly “(insert racial and/or ethnic classification here).”

What I find interesting (as well as particularly disturbing) is the tendency of monoracial people to change their minds about the acceptance of mixed heritage people, only when these “inauthentic” people accomplish something particularly special. I specifically remember having my Asian/Japanese authenticity questioned throughout my life, but when I became the only person NOT of Black American heritage to make the El Cerrito HS basketball team, I suddenly became “the only Asian on the hoop squad.” I was given the name “Senbei” from kids at my Japanese American Buddhist temple because I was a “Japanese Cracker,” but last year when I released my first solo Hip-Hop LP The Literary Ca(n)non, I found my name/album in the local Japanese American newspaper, the Nichibei Times (for the sake of argument, the writer who interviewed me was mixed race too =P).

Now if I ever dreamed of comparing myself to our new President, I would wakeup and apologize. However, his achievements being taken pride in by those who may have previously questioned his “authenticity” is what came to my mind while I was at the Presidential Inauguration in DC. Barack has his “Blackness” brought into question throughout his entire life (read Dreams From My Father) and the second he steps into the white house, becomes “America’s first Black President!”

Now I am not in anyway claiming that all mixed race people experience the same lives/lifestyles. Myself and Slavename have a plethora in common as mixed race men of color, but we also view the world through tremendously different life experiences. I realize that had both of my parents been people of color, that my life would look very different. If I had been born a woman, my experience would vary vastly from what it is now. If my mother had been Japanese American and my father Anglo, my identity would have undoubtedly differed from my lived experience of growing up with an Asian American male role model.

In the long run, I think the fact that so many Black Americans are embracing our new President is absolutely wonderful and due to the “one-drop rule,” there is little to zero doubt in anyone’s mind today that he is not the first ever African-American leader of these United States. The symbolism of this moment in time makes me wakeup each day, thinking that I was only dreaming and I have to f*cking pinch myself.

In no way do I wish to deflate the joy in this moment of revelry for any Americans of African ancestry. Where my multiracial “spidey senses” begin to tingle is relegated to a question of having to prove your authenticity in almost every circle you enter as a mixed race person in America. It sucks uber f*cking visciously to me that he was asked by many Black Americans to prove how “Black” he was, while at the same time ensuring he did what he needed to do to avoid stimulating the internalized racist thought patterns in white Americans, thus frightening their votes away.

With all this said, I believe personally:
-Obama’s being “half white” eased the fears of middle-America whites and had he been raised by two Black parents, he would NOT be in the white house today.
-His being married to Michelle boosts his “Black credibility” and had he married an Anglo, Jewish, Latina, Arab and/or Asian heritage woman, things would look very different.
-He would not be the person he is, had he not viewed life through the lens of a multiracial/ethnic/cultural Black man in Hawaii, Kansas, Indonesia, Chicago, Boston and Washington D.C.

[Senbei, Slavename & a womyn who loves to hang with brilliant/confused mixed people who go stueykablooey.]

-Jay-Z

Bless.
SENBEI

p.s. Speaking of “Regime Change”… I think I’m finna hella heart RAP in 09!

—Colin Response