When President Obama was elected, he was proclaimed our first Black President even though his mother was white, and he was raised with an absent black father by a white mother and grandmother. While it is true many, if not most of us Americans, are of mixed race, including some black lineage, the passage of time and the fortunes of physical characteristics expressed have resulted in many ‘whites’ ignoring their black blood. But not for President O. He was tarred with the old 19th century ‘one drop’ rule (the Racial Integrity Act of 1924) since he had the audacity to be open about his black mother and to look a bit more black than white, but not white enough to not be forced into the black community when he went away to college. He became, in the minds of too many whites, an uppity black man occupying the White House and in power over them. That was something they could not stomach and thus they have seen fit to be disrespectful, vicious in their condemnation of everything he does or says, and almost treasonist in their open, though sometimes veiled, hatred of his being in office.
What would have happened differently if we had labeled him a “Mixed” president? Would we all have had to own up the fact that almost all of us are mixed too?