Cherokees, Kenyans, & The Declaration of Independence

We live in interesting times. Here is the latest blockbuster from the WaPo:

Minority babies outnumbered white newborns in 2011 for the first time in U.S. history, the latest milestone in a demographic shift that's transforming the nation.

It is difficult to know what that might mean in a nation where Harvard Professor and Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is a minority faculty member because she is (but really isn't) 1/32^nd Native American, but Robert Zimmerman, whose mother is Latina, is a White Hispanic because he shot an African American teen. If Warren and Zimmerman somehow had kids, would they be part of the thrust or the drag in the WaPo's "demographic shift"?

If you think that racial and ethnic identity is clear and meaningful, consider the "birther" theory. I have always been and I remain contemptuous of the charge that Barack Obama is not, as the Constitution requires, a "natural born citizen." It comes as some surprise to learn that, among prominent birthers, one finds Barack Obama. Or at least his literary agent. From the Telegraph:

Breitbart.com has discovered that in 1991 Barack Obama's literary agent (who also represented New Kids on the Block) published a booklet that included a biography of the future President. The audience was "business colleagues" in the publishing industry and it was designed to promote Obama's anticipated first book (later abandoned) called Journeys in Black and White. Here's how it describes the author's origins.

Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation.

The key phrase here is "was born in Kenya" – and this bio line was apparently being used as late as 2007.

I suppose that if you can believe that Elizabeth Warren is, in some meaningful sense, Cherokee, it shouldn't be too hard to believe that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and Kenya. The Telegraph's point is not that this discredit's Obama's claim to birth on American soil, but that it shows that the mainstream press did a lousy job of vetting Obama in 2008.

Maybe, but that's a small point here. What it shows is that race, ethnic identity, and national origin are invested with emotional power and that ambitious persons frequently exploit the ambiguity of these categories in order to take advantage of that power. Sometimes such persons are tempted to fib a bit. There is less reason to believe that Elizabeth Warren is a Native American than to believe that Barack Obama is really a Kenyan. One document less, to be precise.

Racial categories can be very useful for purposes of demographic analysis; however, they are more frequently abused as weapons or sources of anxiety. In the cases described above, these categories are no more real or more useful than astrological signs. Americans have worried that immigration would dilute the body politic. Once we worried about Irish and Polish immigrants. Now we worry about Hispanics and Muslims. These worries are always vane.

What it means to be an American has nothing to do with the color of your skin or what language your grandfather spoke or what gods he worshiped. The American homeland is not blood or soil but parchment. To be an American means that, more or less consciously, you sign your name to the Declaration of Independence and recognize yourself as one of "We the People" in the preamble to the Constitution.

Enormous waves of immigrants have come here and signed on and they have been enrolled. If the strength of those institutions continues, it won't matter what percentage of babies are White or Black or chartreuse. If the institutions fade, no amount of Whiteness, whatever that is, will save us.

Comments

[larry kurtz]

If your little missive wasn't so whiny it might read like capitulation to some of your detractors, Ken.

[caheidelberger]

"The American homeland is not blood or soil but parchment." America as a choicethat's one of your better lines, Ken!

[caheidelberger]

[sorry: I intended to put an em-dash between "choice" and "that's".]

[Donald Pay]

For not seeming to care much about racial or ethnic matters, you spend a lot of electrons repeatedly pointing out little factoids about what coservatives believe about Obama's and Warren's ethnicity. You seem to have an unnatural fascination with this matter, while claiming it doesn't matter. I hope you are right, but your constant harping about it makes me think differently. It kind of reminds me of the preacher who bangs the church secretary on Saturday night, then decries adultery on Sunday morning.

The "parchments" we are talking about were something that didn't apply to many if not a majority or people living in the country at the time they were written. "What it means to be an American has nothing to do with the color of your skin or what language your grandfather spoke or what gods he worshiped," you say. But that's a myth we almost believe. I want to believe that myth, too, but for many that has not been anything near their reality.

For most of our history right up until liberals (Republicans and Democrats) put an end to it in the 60s, race mattered, religion mattered, and language mattered. It took a lot of struggle to wipe legal racial and other barriers out of our society, and conservatives didn't help. In fact, they stood in the way. And today they want to roll things back to the way they used to be, when blacks couldn't vote, minorites could be harrassed and denied housing and jobs and someone with minority status could never lead this nation. That's why they scrutinize racial matters to the point of insanity. They want it back to the days when those parchments were written, and no one but whites with a particular religion and a particular ethnicity were citizens.

[Ken Blanchard]

Donald: I have little idea what your first paragraph is supposed to mean. When the left constantly accuses the right of racism, as you do here, it is hardly an "unnatural fascination" for my side to be concerned with the issue of race. When important figures on the left tell silly fibs about themselves, they have only themselves to blame for the attention they receive.

As for what it means to be an American, I stand by what Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. thought about the matter. If you choose to disagree with the three of us, fine. I think that the history of these United States has been a story of the gradual realization of the principles inherent in the Declaration. At every step of the way, it has been a powerful move to argue that extending fairness, liberty, and the franchise, IS patriotism, that anything else is unamerican. That was the key to Lincoln's rhetoric and to King's rhetoric. Again, you are entitled to disagree.

However, when you say this "And today [conservatives] want to roll things back to the way they used to be, when blacks couldn't vote, minorites could be harrassed and denied housing and jobs and someone with minority status could never lead this nation. That's why they scrutinize racial matters to the point of insanity. They want it back to the days when those parchments were written, and no one but whites with a particular religion and a particular ethnicity were citizens", I reply that you are a liar and a bigot. Saying this is just as bad as saying that Barack Obama is a closet Muslim with a plan to impose Sharia law on America's kiddies. You are a left wing Archie Bunker.

[Ken Blanchard]

Cory: thanks.

[Donald Pay]

KB, you quote the Telegraph, who quotes Breitbart.com. Nothing says rightwing echochamber racism as much as Telegraph and Breitbart, both of whom have a long history promoting rightwing racism. Then you make it seem as if the mainstream press ignoring this issue is a "...lousy job of vetting Obama...."

Really? You think it's a non-issue, but you wanted more stories about it from the mainstream press, but since it wasn't covered in the mainstream press you're going to repeat ad naseum all the racist drivel and specualtion that comes from the echo-chamber just to prove what, exactly in your mind?

I'm not fooled. It proves you want to keep stirring the racial pot. Whether you are a racist or not, you'll have to figure that out, but you certainly understand the racist rightwing, and feed it what it wants.

[Ken Blanchard]

That's right, Donald. Everyone on the other side is corrupt and racist. There's no need for you to produce a shred of evidence for your accusations. In fact, there's no need for you to think about anything all. You're not very good at that, anyway.

[Donald Pay]

A lot of people claim they stood with Martin Luther King after all his struggles and his death, but stood in the way during his lifetime. You love the dream, KB, but lift not one finger to make it reality. Pathetic. It should not be lost on us today that King gave his life supporting unionized muniicipal workers in Memphis. You stand with Martin Luther King on that one, KB, or do you stand with present day race baiters and union haters?

[lynn]

The people who consistently raise the race issue are not the conservatives. The leftists are the ones trying to divide and conquer, and this is just one of the issues they are using.

[Ken Blanchard]

Donald: as Lincoln said, I stand with someone when I judge them to be right. I stand with Martin Luther King, Jr., on the principles of his great "I have a dream" speech. That does not require me to agree with him about everything.

Your constant reference to a "racist right wing" are just stereotyping, no more rational or respectable than racist stereotyping, unless you have some evidence to produce.

[Luizao]

I am still a work in progress Black Diaspora, I want to see black folks think caicitrlly and not monolithically, I want us to rise up from the bottom of almost ever demographic. Unfortunately, I think our focus misplaced as a people.I respect your positions and your candor. Thanks for sharing them with me.I believe that you're also sincere in your wish to have blacks improve their lot in life.In that we're in agreement.As I write this, Barack Obama has already been elected President Elect.The Dems don't give a hoot about our schools, crime, poverty or any of the social blights of Black people they just use us to garner votes and I will not comply.National party politics--that is, politics at the congressional and presidential levels--can only legislate mandated directions, and perhaps fund some of those mandates. Take the No Child Left Behind law. According to some teachers, it is a good law (not all agree, of course). The problem with it, I'm told, is that it was underfunded, or not funded at all.My point: improving schools, ending poverty, and crime, are almost exclusively local problems that require local solutions.I would like to see a local confluence of resources--people and money--to strive toward a resolution of these seemingly perennial problems.If there's a role for the federal government in this effort, then it should participate. Otherwise it should leave the task to those closest to the problem.McCain's motto was Country First. A better motto would have been People First.Country and people are not always synonymous.We need solid solutions to these problems with the awareness that people (educated and working) are our greatest resource, and We the People should act accordingly.Black bloggers--conservative and liberal--can be powerful weapons in our communities to change them for the better.What we need are strong, viable coalitions dedicated to the betterment of our various black communities.That will be my goal during this next administration and beyond.