Ethnicity is not solely race, nor vice versa…..
on September 2, 2008
Category: USA, Elections, Black America
Marian Douglas-Ungaro with some very provocative thoughts on the nomination and possible presidency of Barack Obama….. her view may not be a popular mainstream one but it is an important one and at least encourages a debate away from the cultist mass worship of “Obamatronics” which is gathering momentum in Africa, the Americas and Caribbean………..
Speaking for myself, one of the two most disturbing facts about the U.S. presidential election of November 2008 is that so many folks - even folks who’ve never set foot in the United States, are not U.S. citizens, and have never suffered as 3rd, 4th & 5th class Americans on U.S. soil - are so geared up to “elect themselves a black president.” Yet they either have no clue or absolutely do not care that the person who’s been put forth is not a descendant of any of the millions of OUR Black American families whose ancestors were physically and genetically bred (as prized “slaves”), and lived and died in this “fair land of milk, honey and money,” all the while sharing the same legal status as horses and cows. That long history has marked this country, and it forged the Black American people, as slavery did the entire Afrodescendant population of the Americas, three hundred million-strong today. And yet in 2008, to the best of my knowledge, in any non-majority-Black country of the Americas, and in spite of our history which pre-dates the countries established and built up around us, not one of these descendants will be elected president of her or his land.
Tags:
USA + elections
Barack Obama
Trackback URL for this post:
http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/09/ethnicity_is_not_solely_race_nor_vice_versa.html/trackback
4 Comments so far
1. Ana
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:16 am
Panama had a Black President-Carlos Antonio Mendoza, in 1910.The U.S. did him in.
Whether the black candidate is a descendant of slaves or of immigrants is irrelevant.
Either Ms. Ungaro is suffering from jealousy, has little notion of history or she has been living under a rock all these years and cannot comprehend the hegemonic position that her native country holds.
I find too many African Ameericans to be too provincial in their views.
Foreign born Blacks have a better understanding and grip of themselves than many African Americans. I wish Obama the best and I understand that he is not a messiah.
The world is changing, and it is about time that everyone understands that.
Saludos,
Ana
2. Adu Paako
September 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Wow, how depressing… putting the irrelevant question on the blackness of obama to one side, does the author imagine that her people wouild be better served by McCain?!
Now, back to race.
In her piece, Marian refers to an African American history that “predates the countries built up and established around us.” Does she not recognise that that history is African history?
God in heaven. Faced with the prospect of a third Bush term, one that could conceivably bring the world to a third world war, why is Marian wasting our time with this nonsense.
She should be campaigning for Obama.
Has she forgotten Katrina. These people do not give a damn about black people (to borrow from Kanye).
I hope for Marian’s sake and mine that few people are taken by her tragically myopic argument.
3. rosmar
September 5th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Does she not think Obama has experienced racism? Does she not think that, even if he had not been born in the U.S., he would have experienced racism? Does she not know that the history of slavery was not just a history of the U.S.?
4. Hathor
September 6th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Why don’t black people realize that their blackness has always depended upon white people. Black is a perception and there is nothing genetic about it, so how can there be an authenticity be built upon that. There can be an authenticity built upon our origins and culture which spread during the diaspora.
Hathors last blog post..Dynasty Update