Dreams: Racism of Another Color

¶ … Dreams: Racism of Another Color

Much of the debate concerning race in this country and indeed around the world has for centuries consisted of listing and extrapolating on the perceived differences from one race to another. Different theorists, politicians, scientists, and social philosophers, great thinkers and small minds alike, have pointed to various perceived differences between races as reasons that they reasonably could or should be separated, treated differently, or even simply understood differently. The differences between races perceived and asserted by these individuals have ranged from those that have a biological or genetic basis, which have been proven largely if not entirely unfounded by today's researchers, to social and cultural differences that certainly exist, though they cannot be said to have a racial basis. In short, many people -- perhaps nearly everyone -- have insisted on real and persistent differences in racial identity and/or worldview that affect the interrelationships among races in a diverse society.

This background is what makes the fourth chapter of Barak Obama's autobiography Dreams from My Father: A story of Race and Inheritance both so compelling and so ironic. In this chapter, Obama reflects on his adolescent years, growing up as one of the very few black students at his Hawaiian high school wile living with his white grandparents. His observations of the behaviors exhibited by the other black men around him, particularly his friend Ray, made a strong impression on the now-President during is time as a teenager, and caused him to examine the nature of the racial divide not only as it applied to his own identity but also in its relationship to the general power structure in American society. The main thrust of this chapter however, is not concerned with the differences between black and white, but the similar racist attitudes that existed amongst both groups.

Obama is certainly not the first person, or even the first African-American, to suggest that the African-American community in general holds many racist beliefs and attitudes toward white and people of other ethnic backgrounds and skin colors. But the personal telling of this realization on his part as well as the conclusions he seems to draw from this rather starling epiphany -- not to mention his current status as one of the most powerful men in the world -- makes his comments at once more controversial and more profound. There is an immediate sense of irony in the chapter, as Obama remembers a comment of Ray's concerning girls at their high school: "These girls are a-1, USDA-certified racists. All of 'em. White girls. Asian girls -- shoot, these Asians worse than the whites" (Obama 73). Ray's inability to see the inherent racism in his classification and gradation of women based on their race, whether or not his assertions were true, struck the young Obama as amusing, but also obviously caused him to think long and hard about his identity as a quasi-African-American and the issue of race in general.

Not only did Obama come to recognize this basic racism in most of the others he encountered, but he even developed his own rather race-centric views that he was able to consciously exploit to his advantage. Basketball, for instance, became a way for Obama to celebrate his Africa-American heritage and solidify his identity. He recalls that "on the basketball court I could find a community of sorts...on a turf where blackness couldn't be a disadvantage" (Obama 80). At this point, Obama had accepted the reality of the divide that was thrust upon blacks and whites alike. Adolescence is a time when everyone is searching for their identity, and for Obama for a time this meant determining a specific racial identity and attempting to live up to it.