[Xmca-l] Re: Ruqaiya Hasan

[Jenna McWilliams]

Paul, you write: 
"It is in this same european ethnocentric ethos that obama sees the world.   Hence, my comment that obama is a white man!  He is no different from bill clinton, george bush, etc.... I could care less if his skin-color would get him stopped by the cops, it does not negate the fact that he is a white/black man seeking equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution with people who would lynch him!"

There's a theoretical point made here, and then there's an in-the-street point: that skin color is directly correlated in America to a host of experiences. 

Regardless of Obama's politics, he is firmly placed among the segment of Americans who are at intensely heightened risk of both real and symbolic, psychic and physical, harm.  Regardless of his skill with language, regardless of his ability to code switch, regardless of his beliefs about white culture or white superiority, Barack Obama has this in common with other Black Americans. To argue otherwise, or to claim that skin color and and the experiences that result from it are less important than epistemology in shaping what racial identities people have a right to claim, seems to me somewhat reckless--especially right at this particular American moment. 


Jacob (Jenna) McWilliams
Educational Psychology and Learning Sciences Program
University of Colorado Boulder



> On Jul 1, 2015, at 4:15 PM, Dr. Paul C. Mocombe <pmocombe@mocombeian.com> wrote:
> 
> I could care less if his skin-color would get him stopped by the cops, it does not negate the fact that he is a white/black man seeking equality of opportunity, recognition, and distribution with people who would lynch him!