This is a posting about the self-congratulating media coverage of the Obama presidency and race. It’s time to remember who President Obama really is: he’s black, but he’s also white. It’s also time to realize that the majority of voters – especially the younger generation – are not as hung-up as those over 40.

 

JT is a former heavyweight boxer turned personal trainer. I arrived at his gym in shorts and a tank top. JT, who is black, smiles and says, “You got some black blood in you.”

 

It was a compliment. To deflect embarrassment, I used sexual humor. “Not from the waist down.”

 

The Irish scourge is always handy for a good laugh. JT laughed and was cool.

 

JT comes to mind as I watched the pre and post election coverage as the media – as well as the pundits on the left and the right – continue to drive home the theme of our first black president.

 

Don’t get me wrong, this is historic. Being raised in the 1960s from the liberal northeast and who eventually covered racial stories in The South, I was nearly moved to tears during Obama’s acceptance speech. This is why folks fought during that tumultuous decade 40 years ago.

 

And I think the celebrations are appropriate. But let’s not continue to dwell on this. The media will, however, continue to ride this story. Why? It’s easy.

 

The problem: it’s unconscious racism. We call Barack Obama the first black president – but he’s also white. Why don’t we call him the first mixed-race president?

Technically, he’s mulatto.

 

As the media continues to roll out story after story about Obama’s race, the underlying theme to me is this: see how good we white folk are; we accepted someone who is not pure white.

 

This underlying bias plays to older white Americans. I don’t just mean the guy – who I know — who’s in his 50s and proudly proclaimed he voted for the first time yesterday just to “vote against the nigger.” No, I also mean the folks over 40 who strictly see Obama as a black guy. I also want to wake up folks like Spike Lee who need to realize Barack isn’t just your blood; he belongs to white folk too, which makes him all of ours.

 

I’m proud to say I don’t see Obama as a black man. I see him as an American just as I see Jessica, the young girl who accompanied me at the First Tee of Southern Nevada golf event on Monday. Jessica is 12 and she could be Hispanic or Asian. I never asked her or her mom. I didn’t really care. She was a great kid who loved golf and had a loving family with her. They were the American Dream realized.

 

 

As I look around at various public places in Las Vegas, I see more and more mixed race kids. And they’re all playing or gathering with their friends who are mixed race also. But it’s not a big deal to them. And I don’t think it’s a big deal to the many young voters who came out in droves yesterday.

 

So, will the news media please join the majority of us – spend no more time on the first black president — and move onto the issues?

 

For those of you who can’t move on, who are too racist and myopic in your views — let me open your white eyes.

 

Ronald Reagan was probably our first black president. How so? Well, Ronny was black Irish. Black Irish are folks of Irish descent who have Mediterranean blood lines. History tells us that the Celtic line mixed with this southern European strain either in 1066 through William the Conqueror or, mostly likely, in 1588 when the British Navy sunk the Spanish Armada off the coast of Ireland.

 

Those Spanish sailors swam to shore and mated with those fine milky skinned, strawberry hair lasses thus changing the Gaelic gene pool. Just look at a photo of Ronny Reagan or my headshot and you will see a classic dark hair and blue eye Black Irish.

 

Here’s where I go further in my genealogical theory. I explain to folks that the Spanish blood was also mixed with Moor blood, which is African blood. Yes, there was plenty of mating between Spain and the northern tip of Africa. So, that makes Ronald Reagan – and me — African.

 

With all the new DNA testing available today, many of us white folk can find out we have African blood. (Now I could make a smart aleck remark like, “Then why can’t I dance? But I won’t since Whitney Houston has no rhythm either.)

 

And just as we share the same blood, we also share the same shame. White America should – and does — feel the historic pain of slavery. But black America also realizes their culpability in our racist past. Read the classic book Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison from the 1950s where Ellison reminds us that black on black violence and racism was prevalent, too. Pick up Thomas Sowell’s recent book Black Rednecks and White Liberals. Sowell explains how the low-income, low esteem black males took their cue from the Southern Scots Irish of the 1800s who enjoyed drinking, loafing and sex more than work, family, and sobriety.

 

To understand how far we’ve come, watch Chocolate News on Comedy Central. David Allen Grier hosts it. I nearly split a gut while watching his piece on a De-Negrofication Clinic for wiggers.

 

After watching that show and seeing how the majority of America voted Tuesday, I began to think we can all laugh at our past ignorance – and move on. Hopefully, the media will allow us.

 

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