A Technical Oversight?

Why do we keep saying Obama is "black."

It's now nauseating to read all these articles about how America is suddenly changing because it voted a black man in. I tend to think of it less as a zero-sum process and more one that has been slowly evolving through the course of history.

Nonetheless, the syrupy puff pieces usually goes something like this:

Ext:Man walking in Mid-West with hands in his pockets. It's his first day back...after a 20 year absence. He pulls out a mega-phone.

There's a wind of change here, you hear boy? White man guilt is ordaining we make amends for ever and ever... and ever. Did you see, America voted a black man in? A black man! Ooo, baby! A black man will lead the country into lighter places! Remember the time we went on our own into Iraq? Well now, we have a black man in power and he'll make us heal! He'll makes us forget slavery and Dubya! Because, you know, he's black!

Ok. They don't go exactly like this. This is how I interpret and imagine them.

Only problem is, isn't Obama mulatto? Technically speaking. I mean the guy through his mum has Irish-English blood in him - ironically speaking.

Is our guilt that deep?

So let me be the first (I think) blogger to say: Obama is America's first mulatto president.