THE COLOR PURPLE

The month of February is about Black folks, but it is also about color. One of the first African-American U.S. Senators after the civil war was Senator  Blanche Bruce . Within the last few years, his contribution to the American experience was to be celebrated. Bruce was “light” and his wife was even “lighter.” All of his relatives were invited to the Senate for a special ceremony and no one came. All had married white mates and could now pass and they did not want their identities to be revealed. (Graham: The Senator and the Socialite)

“Soul Food” is an ongoing drama about Black families and is on the Black Entertainment Network. In one episode, a Black mother gives birth to a light brown son. She remembers how due to her color was passed over for lighter girls by the boys. She finds her son doing the same thing. She confronts him and his reply was “do you want me to just date dark girls?” The episode ends. Her son had become “color struck” obsessed about color.

In the Landlord (1970) a white Scandinavian man marries a bi-racial female who appears white. He has also sired a child with a Black woman, and the baby is “white.” The mother gives up the child to the biological father. In the end, the three “white” folks drive off into the horizon and the movie ends.

Ah, the social and political N-bomb of color. If you are Black, stay back. If you are brown, stick around. Barak Obama is a light brown white man. No, he is not. He is a light Black man. The race of Barak is socially constructed by the white community. The Week (2/9/07:17) asks “Is he ‘black’ enough?” At the time of the article, Obama was trailing Hillary among Blacks by 3 to 1.

Obama is a talent and a Harvard Law School graduate. His parents were professionals and he grew up in the suburbs in Hawaii. Dickerson of Salon.com indicates that to be Black is to have distant relatives who came from West African slaves. Obama is clearly not that. Nor is he a member of the “community” nor did he face the travails of the ghetto experience. In Peter Beinhart’s “Black like Me” (New Republic, 2/5/07:6) Colin Powell back in 1995 was blunt about color. He said “I speak reasonably well, like a white person” and visually “I ain’t that black.”

In politics, the color is not always purple, it is light tan. It’s something white folks suffer for in the summer in the hot sun. In politics, Black essayist and syndicated columnist often seen in The Gazette is Clarence Page who was quoted in The Week saying that in the secrecy of the voting booth, the color is white in red states, blue states, and purple ones.

Obama could win, but he must walk a very tight rope that is braded and looks brown, but it could be white. He has to embrace color and transcend it. His task is to break a color barrier that is in both the white and black communities. Until he wins, we will have to call him the “Catch- 22 candidate” not the “Comeback kid.”