NY Times: Muslim Voters Detect a Snub From Obama

By: Andrea Elliot, June 24, 2008

As Senator Barack Obama courted voters in Iowa last December, Representative Keith Ellison, the country’s first Muslim congressman, stepped forward eagerly to help. Mr. Ellison believed that Mr. Obama’s message of unity resonated deeply with American Muslims. He volunteered to speak on Mr. Obama’s behalf at a mosque in Cedar Rapids, one of the nation’s oldest Muslim enclaves. But before the rally could take place, aides to Mr. Obama asked Mr. Ellison to cancel the trip because it might stir controversy. MORE…

YouTube: Obama speaks to HQ staff and volunteers

Obama supporter in New York subway

Obama supporter wears homemade T-shirt in New York subway one day after Obama clinches nomination. Photo by Naomi Ishisaka

NY Times: COLOR TEST; Where Whites Draw the Line

June 8, 2008

By MARCUS MABRY

How black is too black?

Millions of African-Americans celebrated Barack Obama’s historic victory, seeing in it a reflection — sudden and shocking — of their own expanded horizons. But whether Mr. Obama captures the White House in November will depend on how he is seen by white Americans. Indeed, some people argue that one of the reasons Mr. Obama was able to defeat Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was that a large number of white voters saw him as ”postracial.”

In other words, Mr. Obama was black, but not too black. MORE…

Latino voters favor Obama over McCain, according to UW pollsters

A new national survey of Latino voters shows Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with a nearly 3-to-1 advantage over his rival, Republican John McCain.

The survey found that 60 percent of Latinos planned to vote for Obama, compared to 23 percent for McCain, while 16 percent were undecided. Latino Decisions, a joint effort between Pacific Market Research and University of Washington political scientists Matt Barreto and Gary Segura, conducted the poll by telephone June 1-12. MORE…

The primaries are over, Obama may be the first black president – what does it mean to you?

With the primary season finally coming to a close, the first African-American to be a major party nominee may become president. What does this historic election mean to you? Have you participated in the campaign? Have you participated in politics before? Do you plan to be involved in the general election campaign? What did you think about the primary campaign?
Tell us what you think.

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Wash Post: Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause

By Kevin Merida

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 13, 2008; Page A01

Danielle Ross was alone in an empty room at the Obama campaign headquarters in Kokomo, Ind., a cellphone in one hand, a voter call list in the other. She was stretched out on the carpeted floor wearing laceless sky-blue Converses, stories from the trail on her mind. It was the day before Indiana’s primary, and she had just been chased by dogs while canvassing in a Kokomo suburb. But that was not the worst thing to occur since she postponed her sophomore year at Middle Tennessee State University, in part to hopscotch America stumping for Barack Obama.  MORE …

NYT: Who Are We? New Dialogue on Mixed Race

March 31, 2008

The New York Times

By MIREYA NAVARRO

Jenifer Bratter once wore a T-shirt in college that read “100 percent black woman.” Her African-American friends would not have it.

“I remember getting a lot of flak because of the fact I wasn’t 100 percent black,” said Ms. Bratter, 34, recalling her years at Penn State.

“I was very hurt by that,” said Ms. Bratter, whose mother is black and whose father is white. “I remember feeling like, Isn’t this what everybody expects me to think?”

Being accepted. Proving loyalty. Navigating the tight space between racial divides. Americans of mixed race say these are issues they have long confronted, and when Senator Barack Obama recently delivered a speech about race in Philadelphia, it rang with a special significance in their ears. They saw parallels between the path trod by Mr. Obama and their own. MORE …

NYT – Mixed Messenger: Multiracial issues and Obama

March 23, 2008

The Way We Live Now

By
PEGGY ORENSTEIN

THE NEW YORK TIMES

A few weeks ago, while stuck at the Chicago airport with my 4-year-old daughter, I struck up a conversation with a woman sitting in the gate area. After a time, she looked at my girl — who resembles my Japanese-American husband — commented on her height and asked, “Do you know if her birth parents were tall?”

Most Americans watching Barack Obama’s campaign, even those who don’t support him, appreciate the historic significance of an African-American president. But for parents like me, Obama, as the first biracial candidate, symbolizes something else too: the future of race in this country, the paradigm and paradox of its simultaneous intransigence and disappearance.   MORE …

THE ROOT: Alice Walker “Lest We Forget: An open letter to my sisters who are brave”

TheRoot.com

Updated: 6:17 PM ET Mar 27, 2008

March 27, 2008

I HAVE COME home from a long stay in Mexico to find – because of the presidential campaign, and especially because of the Obama/Clinton race for the Democratic nomination – a new country existing alongside the old.  On any given day we, collectively, become the Goddess of the Three Directions and can look back into the past, look at ourselves just where we are, and take a glance, as well, into the future.  It is a space with which I am familiar.

When I was born in 1944 my parents lived on a middle Georgia plantation that was owned by a white distant relative,  Miss May Montgomery. (During my childhood it was necessary to address all white girls as “Miss” when they reached the age of twelve.)  She would never admit to this relationship, of course, except to mock it.  Told by my parents that several of their children would not eat chicken skin she responded that of course they would not.  No Montgomerys would.

My parents and older siblings did everything imaginable for Miss May.  They planted and raised her cotton and corn, fed and killed and processed her cattle and hogs, painted her house, patched her roof, ran her dairy, and, among countless other duties and responsibilities my father was her chauffeur, taking her anywhere she wanted to go at any hour of the day or night.  She lived in a large white house with green shutters and a green, luxuriant lawn:  not quite as large as Tara of Gone With the Wind fame, but in the same style. MORE ….