February 2, 2012

What Obama means for race


I started to rant about this, but think the picture tells it all.  This little boy, btw, wanted to know if the President's hair "felt like his."  

Awesome.    

4 comments:

steves said...

That is a really neat picture.

Bob said...

That is the greatest thing I have ever seen.

As many around these blog parts know, my wife and I are both Caucasian, but our kids are African American. Hair is a big topic. Mommy has straight blond hair. Daddy has straight brown hair. Sissy has tight brown curls, brother has softer brown curls. We had to learn how to care for black hair. When African Americans saw pictures of my daughter as a baby they would often say: “That is wonderful; now don’t screw up her hair.”

When Obama was elected, it meant a lot to me because of my daughter. (I had only one kid at the time.) I could finally say with some honesty that she could grow up to do anything she wanted to do in this world. My kids have a role model in Obama, which they did not have prior to his election.

I am sending this photo to a bunch of adoptive parents whose families look like mine.

Streak said...

Bob, I didn't know that. I don't know much about hair, but know that there have been a lot of discussion, including earlier when African Americans worked to make their hair more white, because that was the model of acceptability. This photo made me think of the issue of white privilege and how few white people ever had to think about the President resembling them in some way.

Monk-in-Training said...

That really was beautiful, thank you for sharing.