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Sen. Obama missed an expellent opportunity to rise above race. As a person who describes himself as having a
White mother and Black father, also describes himself as Black. The use of these terms such as Black and White are racist in nature. I'll quote a blog I posted yesterday after watching Sen. Obama's speech. The title is "The Black and White of Racism"

"Anyone who uses the terms Black or White in the description of a group of people are compliant with racism today. Moreover, a person who thinks in these terms is mentally programmed to think and reason as a racist.

As Mammals within the species of Primates, Homo sapiens have been further categorized racially as Caucasoids, Negroids, and Mongoloids. This early simple distinction of racial groups has become far more complex as can be viewed at Wikipidia under the subject of Race.

While the terms Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid, are simplistic and out of favor today, the complexity of describing race today, on an individual basis as shown by the Wikipidia Text, indicates that terms such as Black, White, Brown, and Yellow have no meaning other than for the purpose racist conceptualizations.

The term White is used by the racist mind to group and stereotype a vast number of cultures from all over the world into one racial group. The term Black is used by the racist mind to group all people who identify with the African continent into a single racial group.

While most homo sapiens today are interrelated genetically, a person running for President of the United States of America today, Barack Obama, noted that his mother was White and his father was Black. He then went on to designate himself racially as Black.

Why would a person with a White mother and Black father consider themselves Black? Why would they not be White considering the wide diversity of people termed White?

Unfortunately, Sen. Obama missed an excellent opportunity to establish himself beyond the terms of Race or Culture. America is likely to elect any qualified American Citizen, however, a person who identifies themselves as set apart culturally being African-American, or racially as being Black, and attends a racially oriented and divisive church for 20 years, can hardly be called totally American or even mainstream American.

In the use of his terms of Black and White, it would follow that Sen. Obama should designate himself by color as Grey.

There is an established American Culture with a history that unites all American Citizens into one mainstream culture. As a country of immigrants, many Citizens acknowledge other cultural heritages, but are loyal Americans first and foremost.

Much progress has been made in abolishing separations and segregations by race and culture in America society. Doors of integration have been opened wide to bring people who consider themselves Black into the mainstream. The invitation has been for all people to vanish racially into mainstream America. Yet today, a person born to a black and white couple is required for racial purposes to identify themselves as a Black African-American

As we have seen in the news of late, Black racially oriented churches teach hate to even the children with no message of appreciation for or integration into mainstream America. Today we have Black Churches, Black Universities, and Black Entertainment that are neither diverse nor integrated. These Black Institutions promote racism, division, dissention, and anti-American culture.

It is time to stop the social polarization caused by the use of divisive terms like Black and White. It is telling that the first sentence about Race in Wikipedia begins The term race refers to the concept of dividing people…

My father was what is called a native-American even though he did not use the term. I understood, as a child, that I was part Indian and came home one day from a Cowboy and Indian movie disturbed that I had savages as ancestors. I asked my dad if I was an Indian. He replied without hesitation that I was a full blooded American.

Perhaps it is time for us all to be Full Blooded Americans first."*

*racism-america.blogspot.com

Why do we have to have racist terms of any type to describe us? The only factual way to describe a person racially is to have a full DNA read. At this factual level, there are no pure Blacks, Whites, Browns, or Yellows. They are all mixed up.

The implication of Black, White, Brown, or Yellow, when used for racial distinction; is that this implies pure race.

A Black person, by implication, has pure African blood, with no White blood. Problem is most, so called, Black people have some White blood; and most, so called, White people have some black, brown, or yellow blood.

Without the racist term “Black” and this racist identity of “community”, and segregated Black churches, and segregated Black educational institutions; the American Black race just might integrate individually as Citizens into mainstream American society, as Dr. King so dreamed, where we no longer acknowledge Black or White or any racial color.

The terms Black, White, Brown, and Yellow when used in the designation of groups are compliant tools for racism in America today. Again, why do we need these terms?

Rev. Wright preaches Black Liberation Theology. Obama believes in Black Liberation Theology because he's spent 20 years at Wright's church.

Black Liberation Theology believes that any favor a white person does for the black community is only done so out of a desire to perpetuate enslavement, to make sure the black community is forever beholden to the white power structure. According to Rev. Wright, the Clintons' actions of good faith toward the black community are proof positive of their attempts to retain their mastery over an oppressed people.

This type of thinking may have had a place in the 60s and 70s, but it most certainly does not have a place today. I cannot elect a President who subscribes to this view. This is not a forward-thinking view.

Although I attempted to keep my “naïve American” heritage somewhat secret as a child, when someone would find out that I had Indian blood, they would inevitably ask me what “tribe” I am from. I would give them an answer, but resented being cataloged as a tribal person.

This came from a discussion I heard as a child between my dad and my dad’s uncle Tecumseh. Tecumseh had said that America had destroyed our tribal culture and spirituality. He expressed great resentment for all that he felt was lost and could never be regained. He was quite bitter and hateful and often mad drunk.

My dad told Tecumseh that he felt that our individual liberty as American citizens was far better than being subject to a tribe and tribal rule. My dad told him that George Washington was a far better “Chief” than any of the chiefs of our tribal clan or nation because he gave us each our individual freedom. My Dad went on to explain about the Enlightenment Movement that ultimately led to the foundation of American based on the principles of individual Liberty.

I was startled recently when a person, who chose to set themselves apart as Black and had a Black University education, told me that our nation’s founding fathers were “Eurocentric” and were for enslaving Black people. This person seemed to believe that his ancestors at the time did not share in this Liberty and that he had been permanently injured himself because of this.

Here was an educated, affiuent, American citizen who was benefiting personally and individually from all that was gained in this pursuit for individual liberty, disparaging and disassociating himself from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and all our nation’s brave founding fathers.

When I noted that we share the same freedom as American citizens, he told me that Black people like him did not have the same privileges and advantages as White people like me. He went on to tell me that they were not his founding fathers, and that his founding fathers came from Africa.

I let the subject drop. I thought how my great uncle Tecumseh would have spit in his face at being called a White person.

The self proclaimed Black man looked at me as if I should be shamed at all that my people had done to his people and thereby, to him. I felt that although he was an educated American citizen, that he was actually ignorant of the truth.

The concept of Freedom and individual Liberty did not come from Africa. White people did not go to Africa and capture Black people for slavery. White people went to Africa and traded stuff with Black people who then sold their Black brothers, sisters, and children into slavery. Often, being sold into slavery kept the people from being killed outright. For these people, slavery was their salvation.

Africa was completely compliant in slavery. The first slave owner at Jamestown, the first slave owner in what is now America, was an African Black person. Slavery still survives today in Africa, Blacks are enslaving other Blacks even today, along with genocide because of simple tribal hatred.

How can an American Citizen put African culture above their individual Liberty? A liberty that was won with what might be called a majority of White blood spilled from the French Revolution, through many wars including the Revolution and Civil War.

How can an American Citizen, even if they set themselves apart tribally as Black or Indian, not appreciate and be thankful for the White blood sacrificed for that Citizenship? Where is the appreciation in the Black Comminity for what they have gained from what is called the White Community? Why do they have to be set apart? Why not have an American Community?

My dad, as a young man, broke into a store to steal food for my family. On his way out of the store he picked up a few dollars and change from a box on the counter. Turned out it was stamp money and he ended up in Federal prison.
When Tecumseh threw up to him that America had sent him to prison, my dad told him that in prison he had worked in the print shop, was able to get a job in a print shop when he got out of prison, and was able then to support his family very well as a printer since that time.

My dad taught me to appreciate America and the struggle and sacrifice by others that it took to gain our individual freedom. Even though there were so many people more fortunate than us at the time (Black and White), he taught me to appreciate what we did have and what might be gained through personal struggle in America.

Frankly, there was nothing much there to help my dad, and I was not able to go to college. And people still try to categorize me, asking if I am Greek or Indian, or assume I am White with olive skin and blame me for past injustices.

And many of my relatives still blame America for their own faults. I, however, feel so privileged just to be an American…and so proud that we can openly discuss such things as this.

The term is seldom used today, but it was one of my dad’s favorites – the term and concept of America being the “melting pot”. Let’s really forget color, Let's get the racist terms Black, White, Brown, Yellow out of our minds and blend together into American Citizens.

Perhaps we can begin by considering the offspring of a so called Black person and a so called White person, neither Black or White. It would be good to consider such a person simply American.

The formula for true reconciliation, transition, and final full integration, into one single American community does have a Black, Brown, Yellow, and White component, so to speak. Each isolated group must take action.

The Black component has found strength, comfort, and racial pride in polarizing into a single racial “community”. Neo-Blackness has become a racial identity to the extent that Blacks criticize other Blacks for marrying Whites for example. And if this happens, then the child must be brought up in Black culture.

The act required for Blacks: Give up Black racism. Integrate into mainstream American society without attitude, stop teaching children to distrust and blame mainstream Americans, stop stereotyping mainstream Americans as White former slave owners. Do not be afraid to become a fully franchised individual American citizen without color or racial community.

The act required for Whites: Continue to welcome former Black people into the diverse, highly competitive, but homogenous mainstream society – integrate black and white out of existence.

The act for Browns, Yellow and others: Assimilate and Integrate into mainstream American society without concern for race, ethnic background, former culture or religion.

Regarding Black Universities and such: These institutions were funded and built primarily by White people in racially segregated areas of America so the White people could stay separate from Black people. Now the former White universities are fully integrated. Now is the time for all American Colleges and Universities to be the same.

Perhaps historically Black educational institutions can evolve to assist economically disadvantaged Americans of all shades and colors. The first act for these Black schools, however, is to begin rapid diversification of staff and students.

While I was listening to Sen. Obama deliver his speech rationalizing his religious affiliation and the inflammatory statements made and disseminated by his religious leadership about America and White people, I was reminded of the old Southern rational I would hear in the 50’s and 60’s.

What I found, from having literally lived on the boundary line between the White section and the Black section of town, was that a majority of people from the Southern American states wanted to maintain a form of western European culture. Rather than racist, these people were segregationist. The Southerners wanted nothing to do with African culture. The mantra was “Separate but Equal”.

All people could have water, but at similar but separated fountains. Back then, if there had been more around, there would have been a fountain also for Browns, and Yellows, I’m sure. (There were no fountains for Indians, however)

These “White Southerners” were not true racist in the since of the Nazis, they more divided themselves along the line of Baptists, Methodists, etc., Jews and Catholics accepted with reservation of course.

Back then there was a separate “Negro” culture, however, negros that seemed to adapt to “White Southern” culture and civil standards were considered “the Same but Separate”. Back then I knew two people who had “pass” as Whites. They had become so light skin and mainstream as to lose their separate identity.

My “Indian” relatives back then would point out how the White people were doing so much to help the Negro people have schools, colleges, and Universities; and how so many White people wanted to help Negro people advance while ignoring the misery of poor Indian people.

Not only did hundreds of thousands of White people give their lives to put down slavery in America, the main thrust of the Civil Rights movement was from so called White people.

The branch of freedom called black civil rights today sprouted, was nurtured and was shielded by the grand trunk of the Tree of Liberty with roots deep in Western Culture.

Some people today seem to think that the movement for individual human liberty began in the 50’s in America with no consideration or appreciation for the true history.

One action we can each take today, is to help abolish the racial terms and concept of Black and White along with any institutions that perpetuate these racial terms or concepts.