Nov 27, 2007 4:07 pm US/Pacific
Obama's Racial Identity Still An Issue
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (CBS News) ―
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Barack Obama has said that the big city cab drivers who once refused to pick him up had no doubt about his blackness back then, nor should anyone else now, CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds reports.
Campaigning, he addresses the race issue without hesitation, once even mimicking gangbangers - he criticized their work ethic: "Why I gotta do it? Why you didn't ask Pookie to do it?" he said.
He quotes Martin Luther King and occasionally slips into the cadence of a black preacher, but recent polls show Hillary Clinton is the choice of more black Democrats, and it's clear that Obama's racial identity gives pause to some. He is not the descendant of African slaves, but is the son of a white mother and a Kenyan father, so he alone gets questions about just who he is.
"My black activist friends from here to Boston say that you are not black, you are multiracial, and I want to know how you self-identify?" he was asked at a recent event.
Obama replies: "I self-identify as African American - that's how I'm treated and that's how I'm viewed. I'm proud of it."
"The issue of whether he is black enough is not the primary issue," said Michael Fauntroy, a professor of public policy at George Mason University. "The issue is whether he has enough experience."
Besides, Obama may have other strengths. "He is seen as more palatable and more acceptable to larger numbers of white voters," Fauntroy said.
Of course, there are whites who will never vote for Obama because he is black.
"I don't want to sound prejudiced or anything, but for one, I am not going to vote for a colored man to be our president," said one South Carolina voter.
When asked if this country would vote for a black man for the highest office in the land, Sen. Obama deflects the question, suggesting merely raising it is a disservice to the American electorate.
But the American electorate has never had anyone quite like Barack Obama to consider.
(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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