Morgan Freeman says Obama is not America's first black president.

His skin is not black, it's like... dark beige or something.

I wouldn't ever call him our first black president either, I didn't realize some people considered him black. He's just mixed to me.

His children, sure, I'd consider them black.

middle road independent wrote:

Obama is mixed - I don't have a problem if he wants to identify himself as "black," since most American blacks are in fact of mixed ancestry - but if someone asked me what race he is my spontaneous reaction would be "mixed of course."

But Obama's father abandoned him (like the majority of black fathers do), and he was raised by whites, and had virtually NO influences in his upbringing (friends, teahcers, etc) who were black.

how can he possibly identify himself as black?

think about it? wrote:

how can he possibly identify himself as black?

Based on his skin color, I suppose.

think about it? wrote:

But Obama's father abandoned him (like the majority of black fathers do), and he was raised by whites, and had virtually NO influences in his upbringing (friends, teahcers, etc) who were black.

how can he possibly identify himself as black?

Under Apartheid laws he would have been "coloured". Which means, under letsrun laws that's what he is.

Say wha? wrote:

Don't confuse skin color with nationality. Obama's skin is black.

This. If someone asks me what color my shirt is, I'll tell them that it's green. I'm not going to tell them that it is 50% blue and 50% yellow.

Hello, McFly! wrote:

Based on his skin color, I suppose.

If were going with "color", then brown, walnut, mahogony, or chestnut would be more accurate...

Your race is on your birth certificate, and I'm pretty sure President Obama's says Negro, African American or Colored...all of which means Black. I am not sure how it works with all races, but in America, if one of your parents are even part Black, you are labled as Black. For the most part, when one of your parents are Black and is mixed with anything else, people define themselves as Black. (Tiger Woods excluded) And, as far as I know, in the U.S. Dept. of Vital Statistics, there is no category called "mixed" because that would account for close to 50% of Americans and probably close to 90% of Black people in America. If you ever get a chance to go to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone or Ghana, etc., you will clearly see that Black people in America look difference. About 1/3rd of the Black people in North and South Carolina are mixed with Native American and in the Northeast and Southwest there are tons of Black people mixed with Hispanic. Also, to a lesser extent, White people in America don’t look like the average European Anglo. - Fortunately or unfortunately, America is slowly becoming a nation of mutts.

Btw, because you are rich and a celebrity does not mean you are smart (MF)...because President Obama chooses to identify and define himself as Black should end the discussion.

Hello, McFly! wrote:

Based on his skin color, I suppose.

Magic 8 Ball wrote:

If were going with "color", then brown, walnut, mahogony, or chestnut would be more accurate...

I assumed we'd be going with the traditionally accepted skin color choices. I've never been much for high fashion.

I thought Warren Harding was our first mixed race president and Bill Clinton was our first black president? ;)

Anyway, Morgan Freeman himself is probably of mixed race like most "black" people in the U.S. I'm sure he still considers himself black.

If you watched any of the Henry Louis Gates shows on PBS you would see that most black people in the US are not 100% African ancestry, and, for that matter, most "white" "Asian" and "Hispanic" people aren't 100% one thing or another either.

What it really brings home to me is that race is a completely artificial idea. People are rarely 100% anything and once you get into percentages less that 100% it's just arbitrary which "race" you stick people into.

A few generations from now our descendants will look back on us and think we were all idiots for spending so much time thinking about race.

TrackCoach wrote:

Your race is on your birth certificate, and I'm pretty sure President Obama's says Negro, African American or Colored..

Nope x 4.

The year 2150, 5 generations from now.

Your great-great-great grandson is archive searching for examples of early 21st century popular cultural opinion.

He finds letsrun.com

And after 10 minutes realises what the history books are saying is true about the demise of the Western Corporo-Political Empire at the beginning of the 21st century.

Most of the people were dumbazz and the leaders could do almost anything they wanted to.

think about it? wrote:

But Obama's father abandoned him...how can he possibly identify himself as black?

I think you answered your own question right there.

That is pretty cool. So he is a Wichita Kansas boy and he is actually Barack Hussein Obama II. So how does he relate back to King John of Lachlan, England in the 1600s?

Reality Checker wrote:

TrackCoach wrote:

Your race is on your birth certificate, and I'm pretty sure President Obama's says Negro, African American or Colored..

Nope x 4.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/birthcertificate.asp

Everyone is from Africa and shares the same two parents from 60k years ago.

Hello, McFly! wrote:

I assumed we'd be going with the traditionally accepted skin color choices. I've never been much for high fashion.

Do you call Latin Americans white? I've yet to see a box of crayons large enough to include the color "hispanic".

Oh yeah, snopes is a real reliable source (rolls eyes ;l

The reason why a sizable proportion of black American females are attractive is that they have some white ancestry somewhere in their genes. Compare their looks to the real negro females in black Africa. Ali was able to claim he was ‘so pretty’ as compared to Liston and the likes, was because he had some Irish genes somewhere in his system.

Magic 8 Ball wrote:

Hello, McFly! wrote:

I assumed we'd be going with the traditionally accepted skin color choices. I've never been much for high fashion.

Do you call Latin Americans white? I've yet to see a box of crayons large enough to include the color "hispanic".

Shakira, yes:

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Pele, not so much:

Is Morgan Freeman a "mixed race" actor or a "black" actor?

In 2008, the TV series African American Lives 2 revealed that Freeman's great-great-grandparents were slaves who migrated from North Carolina to Mississippi. Freeman also discovered that his caucasian maternal great-great-grandfather had lived with, and was buried beside, Freeman's African-American great-great-grandmother (the two could not legally marry at the time, in the South).

With the help of geneticists, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. put African American ancestry in these terms:

58 percent of African Americans have at least 12.5 percent European ancestry (equivalent of one great-grandparent);

19.6 percent of African Americans have at least 25 percent European ancestry (equivalent of one grandparent);

1 percent of African Americans have at least 50 percent European ancestry (equivalent of one parent); and

5 percent of African Americans have at least 12.5 percent Native American ancestry (equivalent to one great-grandparent)