President Obama on The View: its OK to be black (and mongrel)

U.S. President Barack Obama made an historic first today, appearing on ABC's The View talk show this morning. President Obama was his usual smooth self as he addressed the question of the razor-voiced Joy Behar, the raspy-voiced Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg, the sugary-voiced Sherri Shepherd, and the Valley-girl-voiced Elisabeth Hasselbeck. (Nudge-wink to Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who, while troublingly conservative, is also totally, freaking, hot.)

It's OK To Be Black and Mongrel In America

Obama talked about everything from Snookie and Mel Gibson to the wars, to his daughters and Michelle Obama. More on that later, but what got this space's attention was Whoopi Goldberg's question asking Obama "where are we" as black people, and "who are we?"

Obama said he dealt with those issues of identity when he was a teenager and "wrote a book about it," finally saying that if people saw him as black that was just fine. He also said, correctly, that we were a mongrel demographic, and he's right. Blacks are. So what?

But, for this blogger, that conversation came on the heels of a series of emails and tweets sent by people who were black (or claimed to be as with the Internet, you never know who a person really is), and on my take on Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinco.

To cut to the chase, I said the Cincinnati Bengals receivers were getting racist media coverage, and I stand by that. The claim of some of the readers was for "how I made black people look." Look to whom? Whites? Asians? That statement has always bothered me. This idea that blacks have to live for someone else view of who they are.

I remember when I was, oh, nine years old. This friend of my uncles said "I'm gonna buy a new Cadillac every year, just like white people do. That was 1971. I asked him why it was important to do something because someone white did it; he didn't have a good answer for me.

Unfortunately, there are some African Americans who, regardless of age, are mentally trapped with the same ideas today. Some of them contact me angrily expressing how they think "we look" as blacks.

I really don't care. What's more important to me is how others look to me. Not the other way around. And the key to black self-esteem and success in the World is to get over what someone else thinks about you.

Take a page from President Obama and feel good about yourself.