George,

{It is a greater truth to call Barack Obama a white candidate for president than it is to call former President William 'Bill' Clinton a black president.}

Senator Barack Obama is one of two leading candidates seeking the nomination of the Democratic Party and presidency of the United States in 2008.

Because race is as American as apple pie and systemically affects nearly every aspect of life in America it is a significant factor in the primary presidential election race. Both black and white Americans accept Obama as being a black presidential candidate. For him to be elected president it is vitally important that his race be considered, not in the status quo race classification but in the light of his heredity - progenitors and descendency. America's race classification is neither valid or scientific.

The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States that holds that a person with any race of sub-Sahara Africa ancestry cannot be considered white and so unless said person has an alternative non-white ancestry he can claim, such as native American, Asian, Arab, he must be considered black.

Early in the twentieth century most Southern States, adopted Virginia's race classification formula which defined anyone with one-eight or more Negro to be Black. Alabama used a one-thirty-second rule. In Northern United States Massachusetts's statutes and Ohio case law (not statutes) ruled that someone was legally of the white endogamous group if they were mostly of European blood (a one-half rule). The most popular blood fraction used before nineteenth-century Jim Crow was one-eight rule.

If, and apparently it is true in the eyes of most Americans, the Virginia one-eight rule is applied to Obama he is black. If the Massachusett's one-half rule is applied to Obama he is white, because of his maternal lineage, or equally black as whtie.

In the humankind family race is a Creator endowment. In and of itself that would amount to nothing more than some roses are red and others are yellow. But, that is not the case regarding race in America and much of the world. During modern history, race has been used, particularly by the white race, to deny, exploit and abuse, black people. It must be emphasized that America has not been and is not today a color-blind society, nor should it be. Because racial diversity is not embraced and celebrated in America and the rule used to designate a person's race is racist, just maybe, beginning with giving due consideration to the "true" race of Obama, Americans can rise up and reject the present political and racist rule for race designation and accept the natural and scientific truth-rule to acknowledge his race or races. Inherent in this proposal is the question: can a person be more than one race? Obviously a person can be more than one race if the political race designantion is rejected. (It is worth noting that people who called themselves white are those who determine who is non-white.)

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to his black Kenyan father, Barack Hussein Obama and to his white American mother Ann Dunham from Kansas. His black grandparents, on his father's side, are Onyango, later Hussein Onyango Obama of Kenya and Akumu also of Kenya, Africa. His white grandparents, on his mother's side are Stanley Armour Dunham of Kansas and Madelyn Payne also of Kansas.

What race, other than the huamn race, is Obama who has a white mother and a black father? What race should Americans consider him as they choose their nominee for the Democratic Party and president of the United States?

It is easy for anyone to recognize that Obama is, at a minimum, fifty percent white and fifty percent black. Or, as this writer sees it, he is one-hundred percent white and one-hundred percent black. This is neither fuzzy mathematics or magical calculation. The one-hundred percent concept is not applicable to many relationships, including a mother and a father reproducing one child where three become one.

The natural truth classification holds that Obama is at least fifty percent white. Americans have been acculturated and led to believe that what is politically imposed upon them about race is culturally correct. This writer makes an appeal to black and white people to immediately accept this natural selection paradigm regarding race and declare that Obama is white. In making this declaration recognition is given to the fact that the political classification of Obama as being black is wrong and that his scientific and natural classification is white. (In the meantime fellow-Americans may continue to call this writer black, even though my paternal great-grandfather is white.)

Black and white Americans are urged to use their new-found race-consciousness to declare often and forthrightly that Obama is white. With this enlightenment it should not be a problem for blacks to call Obama a white candidate for president since many of them have accepted what some of their black leaders' reasoning that former President William Bill Clinton was a "black president." Like former President Clinton, Obama has a white mother but unlike him he has a black father. So, if for black people Clinton whose parents are white can be their black president how much more realisitic and easier it woud be for them to accept Obama whose mother is white as a white presidential candidate. I hope and request that Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., and Rev. Al Sharpton will participate in this endeavor to declare that Obama is white.

The present challenge for Americans is to reject the status quo race designation for Obama and declare that his race is white, maybe not lily white, but white. And that I believe makes him white enough to be elected president. As I see it, the only thing that stands between Obama being the next president is the false perception currently held by many Americans considering him to be black when he is actually white or no less white than he is black.

Uriah J. Fields (Electronic Mail, January 17, 2008)

Editor's Note: A 1970 law in Louisiana required anyone with 1/32 (or more) 'Negro Blood' to be classified as Black.