ABSTRACT
Barack Obama has been black for a long time. Since he was born, in fact. After Obama announced his campaign to be president, the whispers turned into op-ed columns and blogs openly declaring that Obama was too white or too African or too privileged to be considered black, while white pundits engaged in a comical attempt to define blackness. The issue of Barack Obama's blackness, in a political sense, has been questioned for many years. Salim Muwakkil noted in the Progressive, Early in his political career, Obama faced considerable opposition from Chicago's substantial Black Nationalist community. Obama learned the danger of being unable to win black votes in that campaign. As Obama said about the race against Rush that 'He didn't just defeat me, he spanked me'. Traditional support for affirmative action has promoted a stereotype of black oppression and suggested that all African Americans come from background of deprivation and discrimination that must be compensated for in college admissions.
