DO WE NEED A GRAY SCALE?

What’s all this about the first, black, presidential candidate? It seems to me the adjective is applied to many people that are no more black than white. Obama, for instance, had one white parent, one black, so he is accurately described as a mulatto, not a black.

Similarly, there are other words, also not derogatory, for certain other mixes: a person with one black, three white grandparents, is a quadroon, whereas if one has one black, seven white, great-grandparents, s/he is an octoroon. Clearly, this terminology is insufficient for all white/black mixtures, so “partial black” and “partial white” are informative and correct. In its days of minority rule, didn’t South Africa advocate “colored?” Of course, there is another major race, and one can’t neglect American Indians and others, so precision would require additional nomenclature.

In our country, however, we’re continually exhorted, if not rigorously constrained, not to pay undue attention to a person’s race. Some news sources distribute their attention to the attribute in a bifurcated way; if a black or partial black, probably designated “black” in either case, has done something creditable, race is remembered but, otherwise, neglected. Perhaps, then, the best way to reference candidates or any other classes of people is to omit parentage, which is beyond our selecting, anyway.

Whatever you decide to do, don’t call Obama and other partial blacks “black.” Doing so marks you as an illiterate and/or some sort of racist.