Sharpe's Opinion
Thursday, 22nd Jan, 2009
Spot on analysis from The Times:
The media’s fascination with his quasi-messianic negritude is on one level emotionally understandable – but it also mawkish and intellectually facile. To drone on ad nauseam about his blackness is reductionist, offensive even, telling us far more about the media’s perceptions of black people than about Mr Obama himself.
Without doubt, race is an important part of our terrestrial journey, but it is not, and never should be, the defining element of the human condition. To reduce President Obama to his skin colour is a form of racism, as it is fundamentally demeaning to his humanity and to his plethora of talents and abilities that have little or nothing to do with his race. It’s dispiriting that we can send men to the Moon and to the bottom of the ocean but we are still incapable of transcending our obsession with race.
More and more it’s annoying me that people are so interested in Obama’s race – particularly black people. Thinking Obama is only great because he is black is not seeing the wood for the trees.