Cain: The "Real Black" Candidate

Caution: Reading Facebook during any of the elongated election seasons can be dangerous for your health sanity. Consider it a tip courtesy of the jasdye.

For example, one man, completely unprompted, posted the following comment:

So you hypocrites call Republicans/Conservatives racists even when many of them support a genuine Black American?

The obvious and short answer is yes. Yes, we do. As to why, the answer to that is in the question. This concerns me as a person and a blogger and a Christian in a way that is central to my blog here: We continue to talk down to people who are different than us without trying to understand where they are coming from in the first place. As a white, male,heterosexual, American Christian who allies and aligns himself with those from all over the socio/economic/racial/ethnic/spiritual world - whether by accident or not - I'm highly aware of the ways that other wmhac's fall short in this area and I cannot be silent on these issues. So, for a group of whites to identify who is and who isn'ta "true" member of the African American community is beyond the *ahem* pale...

It was bad enough when my African American students (and some friends and classmates before that) would say that another African American isn't "black enough". As limited as that thinking was, at least it was an internal critique. It would be like a Panamanian saying that another Panamanian isn't really Panamanian based on preconceptions of what makes a Panamanian.

But neo-cons and Republicans accusing Barack Obama of not being black enough is more like an American saying a Panamanian isn't REALLY a Panamanian - but the American doesn't even know in what hemisphere Panama is.