Does Race Matter?

The question, "Isn't it time for the language to move on?" to me means that instead of judging someone by there appearance through our speech, we should think before we point out eachother's differences. It seems as though her question is making it very clear to her audience that humans today are so stuck in one position that maybe, just maybe we should switch our focus of language back to logic.

Throughout the piece of writing written about Obama by Marie Arana called, "He's Not Black," she is simply making the point that Obama isn't just one race, he is biracial. So for people like ourselves to just call him black because of what we see is a bit naive because we know the facts, we know he's African-American, but we still choose to call him black and like Arana pointed out, on the front page of the Washington Post newspaper it stated, "Obama Makes history: U.S. Decisively Elects First Black President." Personally, I think that what he's called, whether black or white, it doesn't really matter. I mean the fact that he is the first black man to be President I feel is a huge honor for African Americans who lived back then as well as now. However, I think that we could argue this all day until we turn blue in the face, but still have a personal preferance to what we what to call him. Race shouldn't even be our main focus. Why is it that an article is written about race when were trying not to focus on it? All it's going to do is cause our minds to thinking that every time we see someone, were going to try and place them in a race they really don't belong to, which I don't think is Marie Arana's motive at all.

She does a good job making the connection between her family and his family and how they are both biracial. She says, "Like Obama, I am the child of a white Kansan mother and a foreign father who, like Obama's, came to Cambridge, Mass., as a graduate student." When she makes this connection, it's clear to me as a reader that she has respect for his mixed being rather than bashing him. This shows me that the similarities one has with another human being is better than the putting down of a person because of their race or what they look like. So tell me this, does race matter?




He's Not black He's White