Well to some extent its how the American identity is formulated--as a nation of recent and not so recent immigrants, where someone's ancestors came from is part of how people identity who they are. As well, who you were ethnically had a lot to do with your place in society--and still does--remember that America constructs the idea of being "black" as anyone who has ANY sub-Saharan African ancestry, no matter what that person might look like. Being black meant and still means being excluded/segregated, etc. in some aspects of life. An African American friend of mine said that Barack Obama gave African Americans hope and pride in the way that had been lacking since Martin Luther King, Jr.

To think that there is a single idea of being "American" misses the entire way that American society operates--its not a color blind society by any means, and the fact that Barack has African heritage and is a Presidential candidate is a signficant milestone in America.

This is exactly what I think about American culture too.

I was watching a clip from CNN where 3 white reporters were flummoxed about whether it was correct to call Obama the first 'black president' or the first 'African American president'. Viewers had phoned in after taking offence to Obama being referred to as 'black'.

Yes, I expect it's impossible for me as an outsider to really get the complexity: race does seem more social than biological in the US. I know I'm being very naive;-).

I think the flummoxed behavior of the reporters shows how confused America is about race, and how to treat someone who is not white, obviously very bright and articulate, does not have an African ancestor that was enslaved in America, etc. Frankly Barack Obama upsets the racial applecart of the minds of some parts of white America, because he destroys all stereotypes and beliefs about race in America.

If you think there is no issue about race, consider the reactions and rumours that go around about Barack Obama. He is castigated for belonging to an African American church, at the same time that another rumour is sweeping around that he is Muslim. While race might not be directly mentioned in either of these rumours, you can be sure that race underlines this.

America is a racially divided country. You need look no further htan the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina 3 years ago to see how this played out.

"America constructs the idea of being "black" as anyone who has ANY sub-Saharan African ancestry, no matter what that person might look like."

This is probably what confused me; I didn't know that. I mean I'm white but my mother and several of my uncles could probably pass for "black" in the US (in that they're darker than, say, Colin Powell). Which might mean that there's some fairly recent black ancestry, but I wouldn't think of myself as mixed race. Pretty much everyone - esp in the US, I expect - is mixed ethnic by one definition or other.

Yes, you are right Juno, very much a social issue in the United States. In many towns you could draw a line through the center of the town where whites live on one side and blacks on the other. While segregation is against the law now, there is still de facto segregation in many parts of the United States. I think the experience of many African Americans in their lived daily existence points to huge amounts of racial discrimination. Again, I was told by my African American friend that when she leaves the house every day to go to work, she feels like is donning a protective suit of some sort, that she needs to buffer her from the daily encounters she has with racial discrimination and even outright hatred, and it is not until she is back in her home at night that she feels like she is safe and can relax. Now we all might have a feelign something like this when we leave home and go into the outside world, but I think her experience was more profound than I could ever know. As she puts it, when she walks in a room, "black walks in first." She and I were once at a conference together in a large city, and she was looking around, with pure delight, and told me, for the first time in her life she was somewhere where there were more black people than white, ( as it was at this conference) and it was a strange sensation for her to be in public and not be acutely conscious of being black. The African American population in America, I have read, has a higher death rate from stress related illness, without regard to socio-economic levels, and researchers hypothesized that this was due to high levels of stress of simply not being white in American society.

Yes, you are right that many Americans have a mixed ethnic heritage, including most of the African-American population, where skin tones range from pure white to very dark. But the fact of the " one drop" of African blood in a person's heritage is seen in America to make that person "black" ( meaning of sub-Saharan African ancestry). Why does this rule exist? Its a social definition, not a legal rule, but it came about from the days of slavery, where many enslaved women were raped by white men. This meant that the children born were seen as enslaved, taking the condition and ethnicity of their mother, and not the free white father. This was a justification for men to enslave their own children. A very notable ( and controversial) example of this is Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, who was enslaved by Thomas Jefferson. Sally was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife ( they shared a father, the wife was the legitimate white child of the father's marriage, Sally, his daughter from an enslaved woman). Google this, and you can read about the controversy in modern times when African Americans asserted their descent from Thomas Jefferson and the resistance from the "white" descendants of Jefferson to the idea that Jefferson had offspring from Sally Hemings. A tour of his mansion, Monticello--the slave quarters are referred to as servants quarters!!!! No--they were SLAVE quarters, this man OWNED SLAVES!!! His white descendants seem to think that after the death of his wife at an early age, he had no more liaisons with any women ( he would have been oh about 30?)--this just defies common sense.

"it came about from the days of slavery, where many enslaved women were raped by white men. This meant that the children born were seen as enslaved, taking the condition and ethnicity of their mother, and not the free white father."

Seems that whether children inherit the mother's or father's ethnicity is a matter of politics. In a lot of modern civil wars there is mass rape of civilian women by one group, with the intention (or so it is said) of making those women have children that are ethnically the aggressor. It always seemed to me that the child would take the mother's culture, not the agressors. Though I doubt very much that those rapists are really thinking about that: they're just being violent cos they're allowed to get away with it:-s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rule

Interesting Wikipedia article...well, I learned something, that in fact the One Drop Rule had been made statutory in the United States! I never knew that! I always thought it was just a social sort of rule, but in fact, its been made law. That might help give some context to race relations in the United States, its not that long since these laws were done away with, and unfortunately the attitudes that gave rise to them are far from gone.

I tried the South African "pencil test" that is at the end of this article...and the pencil got stuck in my hair!

Hmm...the only pencil test I know of measures something entirely different. And I fail it miserably.

:$

I don't fare so well on that other pencil test myself!!!!!!!