Barack Hussein Obama: A Case of Mistaken Identity

Exit polls in Mississippi showed Obama won about 90 percent of black voters.

Steve Sailer blogged a few days ago about Obama, writing that he is the perfect fake African American. Sailer writes

that only one third of those favoured by affirmative action in university admissions is "true" AA from families in which all four grandparents were born in the USA, descendants of slaves. It was students like these, disadvantaged by the legacy of Jim Crow laws, segregation and decades of racism, poverty and inferior schools, who were intended as principal beneficiaries of affirmative action in university admissions. By this standard, Barack Obama should be the perfect example of the wrong kind of person to get affirmative action: his father was an elite immigrant (Obama Jr. was both a Harvard legacy as well as affirmative action admittee) and his mother was white. The Honolulu preppie's exposure to African-American culture came through watching Soul Train on TV.

Black voters seem to believe that Barck Obama shares their background only because his skin is pigmented. On the face of it is a case of mistaken identity, or faking a background for political advancement, but on the other hand, Obama's identification with AA is sincere and he will be a better AA representative than any native born four slave grandparent Afro American. Conclusion: Steve Sailer is right that he is the perfect fake AA, but that does not mean he is not sincere and that he may not be the best leader for America. In different words, he is sincere and he may be the best for America, including AAs. Coming as I come from an universalist socialist milieu, it is astonishing how American politics is free of ideology and full of ethnic identity issues. And we are in the third millenium and no new man is in view.