ABSTRACT
Consider the following two scenarios. The fi rst is provided by the U.S. President,
Barack Obama. Hailed as the fi rst “Black” president of the United States, he is
biracial, the son of a Black African from Kenya and a White American woman
from Kansas. While his racial identity was the substance of much public discus-
sion during the campaign, no such questions arose about the racial identities of his
two daughters – Natasha (called Sasha) and Malia. How is it that the American
public focused in on the notion of a multiracial, yet Black, Barack Obama but no
such scrutiny was applied to his offspring? This is due, quite likely, to the racial
identity of Obama’s wife and the mother of his children – Michelle. Despite what-
ever questions have been raised about President Obama’s origins or identity,
when depicted with his wife and children, what the public sees is the patriarch of
a Black family.
