My Obligatory Inauguration Obama-is-Great Post (And Why He is)

Considering all the price gouging going on with hotel rooms in DC, Obama’s inauguration is apparently history in the making. But as we observe this epic, monumental, never-been-done-before achievement, what exactly are we celebrating? If Toni Morrison is to be believed, William Jefferson Clinton “white skin notwithstanding,” was our first black President. As Morrison’s got both a Nobel and a Pulitzer, I for one am not going to argue with her. And Obama, being bi-racial, is only black in the strictest sense.

It’s not even correct to say that Obama is the first minority to hold the highest office in the land. Every white guy ever elected is co-owner of that distinction. As far back as the first census in 1790 white men were just 41 percent of the population and have been trending downward ever since (thirty-two percent in 2007).

So, if it’s not really about race or minority status, maybe the big deal we feel churning in our collective guts is something as bold as this: that Barack Obama is our first truly American president.

Can you have a heritage more American than Obama’s? The literal marriage of the immigrant and native. Born in our most diverse state. One without an ethnic majority, but where people of mixed race make up some 20% of the total population. There is nothing about Obama’s background that isn’t truth to the tired saw of the American melting pot. (more…)