How black is Barack Obama?

If your daddy was from Africa, and your mother was a cracka-ass cracka, how black are you, really? In an op-ed in the New York Daily News, the bizarre-looking Stanley Crouch brings up the fact that Barack Obama is not really black the way myself or many of the rest of you d-bags are.

After all, Obama's mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan. Other than color, Obama did not - does not - share a heritage with the majority of black Americans, who are descendants of plantation slaves.

Which begs the question: what does it mean to be black, anyway? Is it solely a matter of being a shade or so darker than a brown paper bag, or do you have to have some sort of background that's mired in slavery and hardship?

[Interesting fact: Not only does Barack Obama's last name rhyme with Osama, but his middle name is... wait for it... Hussein! I read that shit in Wikipedia! 'the fuck?]

Say Obama does become the Democratic nominee for president in '08. As historic a moment as that would be, I still don't think it'd be the same as if a black man whose ancestors picked cotton in this bitch for hundreds of years had that opportunity.

To be sure, African immigrants have been the victims of racism just like most people with dark skin at some point or another. But at the end of the day, they don't have the same history in this country as black descendants of slaves.

Had Barack Obama been the product of miscegenation between some cracka-ass cracka broad and your average jig from St. Louis, rather than some medical student from Kenya, I'm sure it would be much more damaging to the white collective psyche.

His campaign wouldn't even have gotten this far.

In fact, I'm sure it could be argued that Bill Clinton's experience growing up was more akin to the lives most black people lead, despite the fact that he doesn't have any actual black (er, African) in him. Am I right or am I right?

Peep: What Obama isn't: black like me [New York Daily News]

Note: If you haven't already, there's still this weekend to vote in my poll on who will be president first between a black man, a hispanic, a Jew and a woman.