Who Do They Identify With? Redux

If I’m lucky, you readers will see a post from me here from time to time, talking mostly about interracial dating from the perspective of a white woman. But first there’s something I need to get off my chest. If the commentary gets heated, in my mature fashion, I’ll point to Eathan and say, “He started it!”

You’ll learn more about me as the weeks go on, but one thing you should know is I can be quite a tough cookie. I used to dance professionally, and there were times in ballet class when my feet bled right through my pink pointe shoes, but I just kept on dancing. Eventually I turned to the medical field and worked as an EMT and dog handler on a K-9 unit. I routinely spent many an hour crawling though culverts in the dead of winter or slashing through mosquito infested underbrush in the worst of the summer heat, while carrying about 30 pounds of gear. Live searches were the glamorous part of the job-most of our cases were homicides, where the reward at the end of a job well done was a human cadaver. I took up martial arts to spend time with my son and had my fair share of full contact sparring where I got knocked on my butt. I raise Rottweilers. But I blubbered like a baby when Mr. Rogers aired his last show, after 35 years in broadcasting.

Everybody knew Fred Rogers: the quiet-spoken PBS man in his cardigan sweater and sneakers who encouraged children to read, to use their imaginations, and to follow the Golden Rule. I never knew just how much influence he had over his viewers until he retired and “Nightline” dedicated a show to him, “There Goes the Neighborhood” (7/13/01-full box of Kleenex recommended). Much of the program featured interviews with now-grown children who were loyal viewers of Mr. Rogers in the 1970′s and 80′s. These were kids who were beaten, molested, neglected, and starved, told they would never amount to anything. Mr. Rogers offered them a half-hour respite every day, where they could retreat from the harsh realities of daily life–30 minutes of “Yes, I can!” These resilient youths identified with Mr. Rogers in a way that kept them from feeling like victims. It changed their lives forever.

There’s been a great deal of debate about our new President’s ethnic heritage and how that should be labeled in the media. Eathan’s post last month sparked a robust discussion on this topic and left me pondering the fluid relationship between identity and racial boundaries. I haven’t arrived at any conclusions about how much identity may need to be sacrificed in the name of American brotherhood. Perhaps, as a white person, it’s not a conversation I should be part of as, let’s face it, it’s not really my identity that’s at stake here.

However, I do know this. There are people around the world, not just Americans, who identify with Barack Obama because they see him as black. There are people who do the same thing because they believe he is biracial. There are others who identify with him for reasons that have nothing to do with race-because they are poor or they felt their voice was unheard during the last White House administration. My point is not why they identify with him, but the simple fact that they do identify with him.? Instead of arguing over who can claim President Obama as their own, we should be happy that so many previously disenfranchised people now feel they have representation, just like those kids who clung to “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Perhaps we can all take pride in him without feeling the need to argue racial semantics. Let’s channel that energy into the force this country needs so badly now. Let’s all claim him as our own and do what needs to be done to ensure him a second administration.

Written By Priscilla San Remo.