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Wow, this article made me sign up on Salon.com just so I could post this message.
Erin Aubry Kaplan writes, 'to hell with biracialism!' apparently in an attempt to refocus the attention on blackness and away from Obama's biracial background and message of unity, which she argues has been treated as 'exotic' in America. To try to to understand her perspective better, I read her critique (right here on salon.com) of Jennifer Lopez's character in the movie 'Out of Sight' where she questions whether 'the public's embrace of Jennifer Lopez's abundant butt signal[s] a cultural revoultion -- or simply the triumph of watered-down multiculturalism?' While I agree that multiculturalism is a poor stand-in for the real nature of race relations in a society that is still very much racist, I beg to differ with her analysis in these two cases.
Being biracial is also beautiful. I never liked those comments I heard in the media that Barack Obama 'wasn't black enough': he is who is he is, and there is beauty in that. If those white racists back in the day were not so paranoid of losing their 'pure white blood' then they wouldn't have created the one-drop rule that basically classified mixed (black and white) children as black. That's why biraciality was first squashed - because it was a threat to white supremacy. I realize that championing black characteristics is a good cause, but why can't we champion biraciality at the same time? Parents of mixed-race children are undoubtedly breaking racial barriers and simultaneously undermining the bogus classification of races. Emphasizing biraciality is a powerful tool to undermine racism, just as championing blackness is. And no, I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive. Just ask Michelle Obama's husband; and I'm sure Michelle herself would agree.
