02-16-2008, 12:15 AM
Liberation, France
Immaculate Blackness
By Laurent Tran Van Lieu
Translated by Rami Assadi
February 13, 2008
France - Liberation - Original Article (French)
Barack Obama is going to win the next presidential election because he is not black.
Barack Obama isnât black? No: and it is not because his mother is âas white as milkâ in accordance with the âproperâ description of the candidate. The reason that Barack Obama is not representative of black America is because his father is Kenyan.
This is true by the way. One does not say âblack,â one says âAfrican American.â And truly, black Americans are not âAfricanâ except through a long ago memory of their origin which passed from them by way of the original American sin of slavery.
Barack Obama does not embody this original sin. He is not the creditor of any centuries old guilty conscience. And he makes a point to not give any ethnic character to his candidacy so that the color of his skin does not slow the rallying toward him of not just the grand majority of African American voters (a black man is for the first time in a position to occupy the oval office!) but likewise large chunks of other prominent voting blocks. Beyond his intrinsic qualities, Barack Obama symbolizes a changing diversity, doing so without the for now dormant, but ever-present large American racial conflicts. [One gets] the good conscience without the guilt.
At a time when the president of our [French] Republic proposes to write the respect of [other peopleâs] diversity into the preamble of the [French] constitution, what significance does the case of Barack Obama have for us?
Immaculate Blackness
By Laurent Tran Van Lieu
Translated by Rami Assadi
February 13, 2008
France - Liberation - Original Article (French)
Barack Obama is going to win the next presidential election because he is not black.
Barack Obama isnât black? No: and it is not because his mother is âas white as milkâ in accordance with the âproperâ description of the candidate. The reason that Barack Obama is not representative of black America is because his father is Kenyan.
This is true by the way. One does not say âblack,â one says âAfrican American.â And truly, black Americans are not âAfricanâ except through a long ago memory of their origin which passed from them by way of the original American sin of slavery.
Barack Obama does not embody this original sin. He is not the creditor of any centuries old guilty conscience. And he makes a point to not give any ethnic character to his candidacy so that the color of his skin does not slow the rallying toward him of not just the grand majority of African American voters (a black man is for the first time in a position to occupy the oval office!) but likewise large chunks of other prominent voting blocks. Beyond his intrinsic qualities, Barack Obama symbolizes a changing diversity, doing so without the for now dormant, but ever-present large American racial conflicts. [One gets] the good conscience without the guilt.
At a time when the president of our [French] Republic proposes to write the respect of [other peopleâs] diversity into the preamble of the [French] constitution, what significance does the case of Barack Obama have for us?