Obama not the 1st Black Prez? Give it Rest!

In every aspect of culture there are inside jokes that are rooted in a hybrid of perception, legend, facts, but more often, hope and fears. In the black community one of those jokes was that our first “black” President was William Jefferson Clinton.The thought of that alonecaused me tremendous inner grief, and was part of my emotional inability to embrace him as President. This grief motivated me to write derisively in a poem

“On the watch of William Jefferson Clinton, black men on death sentence still filled American’s prisons, Ron Brown was murdered but did we listen?….”


It was my way of saying, black people wake up! This dude is frontin, and ya’ll are buying it hook line, and sinker. More on the black community’s relationship with Bill Clinton later. Because even before, and certainly after the Clinton star blazed bright, tales of other “black” Presidents were circulating within the African American Community. My mother recently, showed me a document tiled “The Six Black Presidents” which listed Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and finally Dwight Eisenhower as six “black” Presidents. The thesis of this document is based on the concept that one “drop” of black blood made one “black”. Thus the "blackness" of these six Presidents was based on their DNA. Okay if cases can be made to support that thesis – then slam dunk, closed case, we can now rewrite American history right? How bout not only wrong, but pervasively wrong and spiritually wrong.


Here’s why. It appears that there seems to be a general agreement within the black community that the term “blackness” denotes to, having at the very least, an affirming and visceral understanding and appreciation of issues, rights, traditions, and history of the black community in America. At the highest end, an affirmation of simply being black. Thus, while some may question your fidelity to the issues of blackness, but your words, deeds and actions left no ambiguity on whether or not you claimed yourself to be black. So when one ascribes to the belief that these six aforementioned Presidents were black due to genetics, and ignores that they never expressed a fundamental and almost primal attachment to blackness, nor did they in any substantial, recordable or public manner fundamentally affirm their blackness, then that is a problem. A big problem. It’s akin to saying that darkness equates to the absence of sunlight, but technically since the 12:30 sun is less vibrant than it was thirty minutes earlier, it equates to midnight. Danger and foolishness lurks when we overreach by extending “technical” truths to the point where we defy both logic and context.



As an American, there is both contextual and logical support to assert that Thomas Jefferson, whose combined, intellect, passion, and vision, to help both create, and expand this country may have been America’s greatest President. Similarly, support can be found to honor the accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln who seemingly willed the reunification of this country, and paid the ultimate price for it. Yet, as a black man, I have to draw the lines. At no point did either Mr. Jefferson or Lincoln openly acknowledge their “blackness”. While Abraham Lincoln is credited as the Great Emancipator; history suggests that he vacillated on the issue of emancipation, and that his highest priory was saving the nation - not freeing the slaves. Now before someone says well President Obama has a big plate, and if he tried to be the “black” president, he would undercut a great majority of his mandate, and goodwill – well just stop! I get that. This summer I wrote that then Senator Obama was correct in not calling for Reparations, because by doing so would step on his change agenda, which called for less divisions, hence joining the reparations bandwagon would have been a disaster. But please don’t confuse the two. Having a policy that is more color blind in a climate that neutralizing rather than politicizing race makes sense. Barack Obama while in his youth and early adulthood was admittedly confused how as a bi-racial man he should allow the social construct of race to impact him. But Barack Obama was never confused that he was not, or is not a black man. So when African Americans wish to give the mantle “blackness” to men whose concern from blackness was more political then soulful, who never open acknowledged their blackness, as Obama said on the stump – “that ain’t right”.


I am not sure if Condi Rice coined the phrase “birth defect” concerning slavery in America, but she is the first person I heard use that term – and it fits. This desire within the African American community to elevate solely on the basis of DNA, men who never affirmed blackness suggest that the birth defect of slavery obscured by the light of Barack Obama still thrives. Which allows me to now circle back to William Jefferson Clinton. In those halcyon days of yore, when the Clinton - Black community love fest was in full bloom, even the death of Ron brown, and indictment of Mike Espy and their associated whispers, failed to dent the Clintonian armor. But for me what was the “et tu” moment occurred during the Monica Lewinski affair when blacks “assuming” Clinton’s infidelity and love for felatio said “see now this proves he is ‘one of us’ ”. My mind simply could not accept what I was hearing but I heard it too often to dismiss as a product of a single deranged mind. I tried to blow it off as a joke, but the manner in which it was said suggested a pleading earnestness in which they hoped they were right. To my dismay, I realized that there was a portion of the black collective, including those in the upper classes of the black race, who now took one of the most unseemliness actions of a white man, and used that to affirm his blackness. The mere thought that the black mindset could reach those depths nearly forty years after the deaths of Dr. King and Malcolm X shook me to my foundation. And for me it was not a joke. And this mentality is not a joke. We simply need to stop! We are undercutting the phenomenal achievement of Barrack Obama with trivial mind bending mischief. While only history can judge whether Barack Obama will be considered a great President, we ought not deny the odyssey of a 47 year old man from Hawaii raised by a single parent to achieve what only a few years ago many people believed would never happen. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln have their place in the pantheon of America history, let’s not allow the residual effect of our birth defect of slavery to deny Barack Hussein Obama his.