Multiracial man

Some people who identify as biracial have taken Obama to task for identifying as black. Biracial author Joy Zaremba recently told NPR that many mixed people believe Obama ought to "come out and be a proud biracial American." Since he is the son of a black Kenyan (there are Kenyans of many races, let's note) and a white woman from Kansas, they argue, to choose his black side denies his white mother, who had a great deal more to do with his upbringing than his father, who left the family when Obama was 2.

But in America, to define yourself as biracial if you happen to be a half-black and half-white politician means risking alienation from black voters, who will presume that you are trying to distance yourself from blackness simply by acknowledging your European genes. So while groups like the NAACP feared a dilution of black political power and fought efforts to introduce a more complex system for racial self-identification on the U.S. census, a new generation of people for whom mixed race might not invoke the specter of slavery want to celebrate their dual status.

If Obama embraces his inner diversity, though, he might also risk confusing white voters of the sort that swept him to victory in Iowa -- at least the sort who believe that they can tell who is black just by looking. Few politicians of mixed race have publicly acknowledged all sides of their background, though some of the most prominent figures in black politics have been light-skinned enough to pass: W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph Bunche, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and others. Which is not to say that these men knew their European ancestors, let alone felt that they owed them anything. To self-identify as black isn't always about literal, visual blackness, but about sympathy for political positions that benefit blacks. Cornel West made this point even as he criticized Obama for missing Smiley's conference. These politicians also rose to notoriety in an age when the political line between blacks and whites was considerably sharper than it is now, even though the genetic line was perhaps even blurrier than it is now.

Despite the reversal of racial fortunes in recent years, there has never been a compelling reason for Obama to campaign as anything other than "a black man." To Middle America, he would seem to be lying otherwise.

However, the more scrutiny Obama's heritage gets in the media, the less possible it will be for him to sidestep the issue, or for us to legitimately read his candidacy in terms of race -- by which we too often mean blacks vs. whites. Perhaps Obama's shyness stems from fear of the kind of criticism Tiger Woods got for coming out as "Cablinasian" and refusing to get involved in the NAACP's fight against the display of the Confederate flag in South Carolina. Or maybe he's using what might be called the Cadbury Egg strategy -- present the black side first, and then go for the white center. But it will be interesting to see what happens when the potential black president poses for photo ops with his white cousin, or when his half-white, half-Indonesian sister stands next to him on the podium. How "black" will Obama be then? How "white"? Maybe the country will be so flummoxed that we'll just have to call him a man.