Debra Dickerson’s recent appearance on The Colbert Report is sparking debate. Logan Nakyanzi Pollard from the Huffington Post weighs in:

Black’s Fine, Thanks: Writer Deborah Dickerson Pulls the Obama Race Card
Posted 02.13.2007

Senator Barack Obama is black. Deborah Dickerson, the author of THE END OF BLACKNESS (Pantheon books) made a recent appearance on The Colbert Report promoting her new book, and in the process argues Obama is technically not black: a divisive, inaccurate, and harmful claim given the challenges that black people face. I want to know why.

. . .

    SC: . . . I don’t see race, okay because I’ve moved beyond that, I’ve developed beyond that. I’m so not a racist. I don’t see race. People tell me I’m white and I believe them because I think that Barack Obama is black. (Laughter)

    DD: He’s an African, African-American.

    SC: So it sounds to me like you are judging blackness not on the color of someone’s skin but on the content of their character, which I think realized Dr. King’s dream in a very special way. (Laughter)

    DD: I think you mean not so much special as perverted. (Laughter) But, um, I think that, uh. You’ve got me so confused here. It’s not so much the content of our character it’s the content of our history and our culture and what we’re doing by calling him black is obliterating the culture of his Kenyan father.

    SC: Well, wouldn’t this be, would this make it more acceptable to the African-American community if he shared some of the experience, the black American experience, and he wasn’t the descendant of slaves, but what if for a brief period of time he were enslaved? (Laughter) And then uh, but nothing racist, he could be like Jesse Jackson’s slave or Al Sharpton’s slave? (Laughter) And then they could say like, you know, you’re free now – and you know no foul, no harm, and then he has all the street cred he needs? (Laughter)

    DD: (Pause laughter ) . . . I think you may have me there.

There is laughter throughout this interview and it seems that Colbert and the audience are getting a good laugh at the expense of Ms. Dickerson.

Perhaps it should be said second that Dickerson skims over the facts – any standard reference will tell you that, “about three-quarters of the slaves came from West Africa and the remaining quarter came from the (south-central) Angola-Congo region.” For someone arguing so vigorously for precision, she is more at the service of her agenda than accuracy.

And her theory or her agenda isn’t very elegant. Colbert is just smart enough to get Dickerson turned around, and all she can do is admit, “you’ve got me so confused”. Anyone in mathematics or science will tell you that the highest praise is an elegant answer, Dickerson, when she’s explaining her ideas, has nothing elegant about it. The audience knows BS when they hear it – what a clunky theory – and they all laugh as she flounders trying to explain how Senator Barack Obama is not – I repeat not – an African-American but is in fact an African, African-American.

Read the full article here

If you missed it, check the video out here:

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