The Presidential Race

According to the vast majority of polls, today Barack Obama will be elected the 44th president of the United States. He will also become, as the press will surely note, the first black president of our country.

But should he be given this label? Technically, Obama is biracial—his mother is Caucasian and his father is Kenyan. Obama himself wrote movingly about his multicultural background in Dreams from My Father, and he speaks frequently about his diverse roots. Yet the public debate still centers over whether people will vote for a “black” president, whether Obama represents the interests of his black constituents, and whether he is in general “black enough.”

A Time magazine article last year, for example, notes that Obama is married to a black woman, attends a black church, and works with the poor on Chicago’s South Side. The author goes on to congratulate Obama for embracing his black identity and culture. Biraciality is considered here to be an “escape valve,” a clear and distinct choice between two fixed identities.

This is hardly the reality. While American history, stretching from slavery to the civil rights movement to today’s black activism, may have long anticipated a black president, we’re presented with Obama, who is black but also white, a character no one seemed to see coming.

Sticking Obama with the single label of “black” merely elides the multiple cultures he represents.

Jessica A. Sequeira ‘11, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Winthrop House.


Change Yousef Can Believe In

My little brother is a character. When asked to introduce himself to his fourth grade class, he proudly stood and the front of the room and declared, “My name is Yousef. I’m a pacifist, an environmentalist, and a feminist.” And he’s a proud Barack Obama supporter.

Yousef knows that evolution exists—even though Texas public schools have told him otherwise—and knows that dinosaurs lived more than 4,000 years ago. He knows that the earth is a precious resource that must be protected from over-pollution. Yousef knows that women and men should have equal rights and that one of those is the right to receive treatment at a hospital, regardless of income. And he’s right.

Having watched Dipdive’s “Yes We Can” music video hundreds of times onine during the primary, Yousef is convinced that Barack Obama would be a president who will bring real change to this country. He’s even reached across the hallway—without preconditions—to show the video to our eight-year-old sister, Lilah, proving that bipartisan cooperation is possible even between the staunchest of adversaries. Now, she too has a sense of this election’s importance.

Yousef—and all American children—need someone like Barack Obama who champions the common-sense values we try so hard to instill in our youth, a politician who is yet to be jaded or corrupted by the political process. He needs someone who won’t allow him to inherit a nation burdened by debt or a world depleted by global warming. Yousef needs someone like Barack Obama to convince him that the promise of “liberty and justice for all”—that promise his class recites every morning—is one America intends to keep.

Good thing we have Barack Obama.

Nadia O. Gaber ’09-’10, a Crimson editorial writer, is a history and literature and women, gender, and sexuality concentrator in Kirkland House.


An Educated Vote

I received my first-ever absentee ballot exactly three weeks before election day. As soon as that ballot hit my hands, I voted for every position—except one.

Weisberg for Town Justice? Check. Re-elect Morahan for another term in New York State Senate? Of course. President of the United States? Different story. My parents chided me for straddling the fence, encouraging me to make a decision and run with it. On campus, the overwhelming tide of support for a certain Illinois senator made it difficult to engage in meaningful dialogue, let alone have a moment of peace for contemplation during the debates.

Being a moderate is a difficult position to take, yet it’s this crucial subset of the electorate that eventually provides the four-year mandate for a candidate to lead. The undecided voter has a duty to take into account all pertinent issues before making an informed decision; the research is exhausting, but is worth a lot more than simply subscribing to the claims of attack ads.

By the time this piece is printed, I will have sent in my ballot with one final bubble marked in. But, unlike many at Harvard, this mark was the culmination of weeks and months of discussion and research. Of all the circles I have blackened in my brief voting career, I’m proudest of this one.

Byran N. Dai ’11, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Currier House.