Saturday, February 21, 2009

Post racial diversity?


With all due respect to "Young Jeezy", your President might be black, but his press office is not.

Well, that is unless you count Bill Burton (the guy on the left in the pic) who considers himself bi-racial thanks to a black father.

Who knew?

"When a list of members of the White House press office appeared to show that no African American professionals worked there, a press assistant fielded a call asking if that were indeed the case. She said yes, not realizing that one of her own bosses, White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton, has a black father and white mother.

'I am biracial, that's right,' Burton, 31, told Journal-isms on Tuesday. 'Though I find it interesting that you ask only if I 'consider' myself biracial and not if I am.'
Burton's ethnicity, a surprise to many who have worked with or covered him through the long Obama campaign and into the White House, has surfaced only
sporadically as a subject in a meteoric career that includes service as communications director for the 2004 presidential campaign of Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., for that of John Kerry, also in 2004, as national press secretary for Sen. Barack Obama, and now as deputy White House press secretary. His race is usually ignored.

'I had NO idea and I used to see him everyday,' one African American Obama campaign worker said. "I'm as good as any of us in 'detecting' the mixed among us and I had no clue. He looks totally white!"

The same White House press assistant assured a caller last week that Burton was not African American and said she was sure because she had known him for some time.
Burton's ethnicity became a subject of more than idle curiosity after Press Secretary Robert Gibbs released a list last week of the press-office staff, as this column
reported then.
Even accounting for Burton, some were concerned. 'I got an e-mail Tuesday listing all of the various press folks and contact information, and hardly any African-Americans or Hispanics were listed,' commentator Roland Martin
said on CNN. 'Granted, the deputy press secretary is African-American and the director of broadcast media is Hispanic. That's not sufficient.
"Unfortunately, this shouldn't come as a shock, because the campaign press staff of then-Sen. Barack Obama was just as weak on diversity.'

Martin repeated his position in his Creators Syndicate newspaper column.
He noted that staff members often rise to the key posts of press secretaries for entire departments and for the White House itself, and that Obama had articulated a commitment to diversity. White House staffers also decide which reporters are admitted to news conferences and which are called upon. Though there continues to be outreach to journalists of color in other venues — Obama gave an
interview just this week to Black Enterprise magazine — it took six post-election news conferences before a black or Hispanic reporter had access to the microphone for questions..."

Well damn Mr. Burton, you fooled a black co-worker for that long? You must be better at this passe blanc thing than most. I just hope that you don't have a black granny hiding away somewhere that you are ashamed of.

Bit hat/tip to Richard Prince from the Maynard Institute. I lifted the article from him.

60 comments:

  1. Wow!! I am shocked! I can usually spot one of "us" amongst white folks.......Angelina Jolie anyone? nuff said.

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  2. I don't know if he was passing per se maybe he just never brought it up...I am sure Pres.Obama knew the truth. There are many people in this country that look white but have black ancestry. ( remember slaves outnumbered whites in the south at one point)...think of how many of them passed as white. There was a white couple that had a black baby and after dna proved that they both were the parents they found out that BOTH of them had black genes it just skipped a couple generations. LOL

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  3. I lay odds that his father would now be considered biracial and his paternal grandmother is dark skinned.

    I think Harold Ford seems to be most ashamed.

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  4. Anonymous12:02 AM

    HOW in the world can anyone be SHOCKED that BILL BURTON is BI-RACIAL! It show's all over him, he is just a shade lighter than the PRESIDENT.

    BILL BURTON fought like the devil for OBAMA during the campaign! he was on his JOB! look at that semi kinky hair, look at that nose, how in the world, could anyone miss that BLACK SIDE!

    The difference between, the PRESIDENT and BILL BURTON is their voice's, when the PRESIDENT begin's to speak, you can tell he has been around AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN, he has picked up their trait's, look at his old picture's, he even walk's with a SWAG at time's, BILL BURTON on the other hand, is what you may call a BI-RACIAL BLACK MAN that flow's back and forth, but, yet, he is a FIELD NEGRO! I watched him during the CAMPAGIN, he allowed OBAMA to use him, he was on FOX NEW'S defending OBAMA to the end.

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  5. Anonymous12:15 AM

    It's in his eyes and eyebrows...

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  6. Even if you count Bill Burton as Black, you'd have to still conclude that just on GP there should be more than one Black person in the White House press office, given that the man in charge is... you know ... Black (or so he considers himself).

    I'm happy that the O man is in office, but let's be real. The White House will be receptive to Black people and their unique issues and voices if there are Black people in the White House ranks.

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  7. Anonymous12:47 AM

    Um he's not really black. Go back and read the article by Prince and you can tell that he isn't even comfortable about his blackness.

    Roland has a point.

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  8. OK, I was just talking about something similar at work today. I've known three black people much lighter than Burton. Two of them have told me that they just got sick of trying to convince people that they were black and getting a lot of hostility from black people ourselves (in one case I did see that hostility firsthand) and just gave up. So, I don't think that he's passing so much. Maybe he's just tired of screaming that he's black to everyone.

    As far as Obama having more "people of color" in his press corps ... why? Does he constantly have to scour the earth to have the right proportion of minorities working for him? What is the right proportion? Is it a constantly moving target? Bush didn't have any but Obama should at least have 3 ... or 27 ... or 152? Where does it stop? I just think this is yet another example how he's just not going to be able to please everybody. Maybe the man just hired those he worked closely with during his campaign. If it's fine for other politicians, why isn't it fair for him? Isn't that equality?

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  9. He's a white-skinned guy with some more recent Black ancestry. Just like there are Blacks with white ancestry. If he wants to acknowledge his parentage that's fine but I wouldn't want him using scholarships and claiming oppression when it's convenient while stepping back into the White world of his daily life with all of its privileges. His father sought companionship with a white woman - there's nothing new to tell and he's not special.

    I met a white-skinned guy with a Black father once. If he hadn't made a point of mentioning it I would not have known. Red hair, green eyes, pale face. There's plenty of predominantly white people with Black ancestry. Big whoop.

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  10. Anonymous1:28 AM

    WHY would BILL BURTON need to ANNOUNCE that he is BI-RACIAL! and why would the PRESIDENT need to tell AMERICA that BILL BURTON is BI-RACIAL!

    HAROLD FORD has kinky hair and yet he is what we would call (HIGH YELLOW) he sound like a BLACK MAN, but, yet he is MARRIED to WHITE a WOMAN! he defend's the BLACK RACE, but, yet, he has ventured over to the WHITE side, and if someone would have told me, that he would marry a WHITE WOMAN I would not have believed it! now that SHOCKED me when I heard it!

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  11. Anonymous1:54 AM

    WHY can't the PRESIDENT get a break! if he all's on a AFRICAN AMERICAN JOURNALIST, he know's what they are going to ask him! it will be BLACK this and BLACK that!!

    WHY can't we just flow with the PRESIDENT? but, oh, no, we want him to take that MICROPHONE and turn RADICAL! just to prove to us that he is really and truly BLACK.

    AFRICAN AMERICAN'S came down on ERIC HOLDER when he made that SPEECH, and he was RIGHT! I can't wait to hear what he has to say next! why do you think the PRESIDENT chose him as ATTORNEY GENERAL? the PRESIDENT was sending a message to RACIST WHITE AMERICA!

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  12. Field I knew I was gonna regret going over to that blog you are feeling because I'd be stepping into moron-zone and sure enough I get:

    "I'm a nurse and Rihanna's injuries didn't look that bad. It looked like she was in a fight not (having received) a beat down."

    Huh?

    You're a lawyer so please let us know: can't you be charged with assault even after hitting someone once? Haven't people been charged with attempted murder after getting into a mere "fight"?

    If it wasn't for the white bloggers being rightfully and appropriately outraged with no grading misdeeds on a curve this would barely register as a blip in the Black media. Black people and esp some women are the worst excusers and deniers.

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  13. Field Negro,

    why in the HELL are you feeling Sandra Rose??? Isn't the bitch that runs that blog a HOUSE NEGRO???

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  14. My sister is a senior exec in press office but her name doesn't sound "black". Roland doesn't know what he is talking about.

    The Black Snob listed all the folks of color. There are quite a few for such a tiny department.

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  15. Anonymous6:06 AM

    I'm a very light-skin black woman. All my life people have told me that I could pass. I am absolutely insulted by that. Why would I ever want to pass? Why would I want to be white? Then white folks follow it up with, "Well, you don't sound black." That's when I go off on them. If people ask me what I am I tell them. I will not engage in conversations disecting my ethnic heritage. I'm black and that's all people need to know. I'm sure that this deputy press secretary has spent much of his life answering similar questions. He, and I, shouldn't have to walk around with signs around our neck saying, "I'm black. Get over it."

    As for diversity in the press office, yes, Obama's team needs more diversity.

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  16. Anonymous7:24 AM

    Day-um, Y'all Coloreds spend more time worryin about skin color than George Wallace in his prime...
    Can't w'all just get along? Only Bruths in government that looks like the kids I went to school with is Clarence Thomas...

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  17. Anonymous7:27 AM

    Sorry Y'all, I found this blog by accident, Y'see I'm lookin for a REAL "Field Negro" to pick my Cotton and plow the South 40, but y'all funnier than an Amos n'Andy Film Festival (Did Y'all know you can get their DVD's at Walmart? They keep em' by the Soap so the Bruthas won't notice) LOL

    Frank

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  18. My stepmother's mother was so white that she passed without trying.

    Kids would tease us often about the white woman that lived with us.

    Of course we'd have to correct them: "She's no white woman, she's colored."

    We were all called colored at that time, although the term always puzzled me, because coloring was what we did with crayons, and the results was that which was colored.

    And a box of crayons was always insufficient for our needs when we set out to color all the various skin hues of those blacks we met daily.

    I digress, as Field would say. Back on point, at least a little.

    My step-grandmother as a child was a slave. She lived to a known age of a hundred and six.

    My mother lived that long as well. If you're wondering why I use the term "step" to refer to the both of them (something I wouldn't do normally ), it's because it would mislead you into thinking that their racial heritage is also my heritage in that specific family sense.

    This ex-slave woman--who was one of the kindest, sweetest, most loving, caring, women I knew growing up--never talked about her experience as a slave.

    On my several attempts to learn why, the answer was always the same: Grandma just don't like to talk about it.

    And that was that.

    When I was growing up, you encountered blacks that were whiter than white, and blacks that were blacker than black.

    Or so it seemed. Yet, skin color never became the measure of a man, or woman--just what he or she was made of inside.

    The color of their soul.

    Because skin color was of a high-profile consideration for whites, it became imperative, then, that you learned to tell black from white, regardless of skin color.

    Your life depended on it. And I don't exaggerate!

    Although I'm not grading Obama on whether he adheres to some black litmus test, I am grading him using a presidential litmus test.

    In the end, it will the presidential test that measures whether he succeeds or fails.

    In recent years, "diversity" has come under scrutiny as one of those tests.

    "I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear...," penned Walt Whitman in one of his poems.

    I find that America is at her best when all sing their "varied carols."

    She excels when an effort is made to "hear" those "varied" voices above the special-interest din and clamor that has for years characterized politics within the Capitol Beltway.

    I say: "Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring...."

    And let's hope that someone's listening.

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  19. Anonymous8:17 AM

    It was good of ol' Frank to drop by and remind us that we aren't as post racial as we sometimes think. That's a real public service you are performing there, Frank.

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  20. Yeah Frank has some issues. And I see he shops at Wal-Mart. Wow, there is a surprise. I bet it's the main meeting place in his town.:)

    ActsOffaith...you are so right about us black folks and this domestic violence thing. That is one really sore spot with me. I am going to do a long post about it one day. I work in domestic relations, so you know I have some stories. But the shit is just sad. Here in Philly, just last night, some clown stabbed his ex to death in front of her children and then killed himself. What is up with some of these brothers?

    Dr. President. read my comments to you in the previous post. I think I answered your question there.

    You know what, in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have implied that Mr. Burton is trying to "pass". That might have been a poor choice of words. Maybe he wanted everyone to know he was bi-racial all along and was doing nothing to hide it. Maybe it's the people who are looking for that stuff who have problems....

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  21. Anonymous9:49 AM

    Give me a break, the guy is white with black ancestors, this old silly, racist American, one drop rule is ridiculous in 2009 when young people of different races are dating, marrying and having mixed kids who don't look like one parent. He does not look black and to the rest of this planet he isn't.

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  22. Field,

    Anonymous 949am is right. We niggers need to stop our niggerish labeling and whining. Isn't that it, Anonymous, you clown?

    On a serious note, this belies something insidious within the thrust of this Administration. I have always contended that Barack's team and his focus has been more about the empowerment of a younger generation of white yuppies etc. then it is empowering black folks and righting, overnight, the past wrongs which still abound..or educationg fools like Anonymous.

    FYI Wingnut Oscar post is up at Nat Turner.

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  23. Yes, more evidence of black men and their long sick fetish for white skin. All these "don't dare call me full black" bi-wishers of the white womb, even the white looking ones want their 15 minute Obama fame. Yawn.

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  24. Anonymous11:36 AM

    Frankly, I don't care how many Blacks Obama have in his press office. I'm more concerned with Obama team fixing the "Damn Economy" call me crazy but I find that issue more important than the we must have a thousand Blacks in the White House memo.
    This shit about why there is not enough Blacks in the White House reminds me of people Bitching about Oprah staff being to White.
    Now, here you have one of the richest Black women in the world who gives more of her time and money to Black causes yet certain folk was angry because she did get enough Blacks in her office to fit there post-racial dreams.
    Now, the same people are bitching about Obama not fitting the imaginary Black press quote either.

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  25. Anonymous11:45 AM

    Really...what does it matter?

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  26. Really? Country's going to hell in a hand basket. And THIS is the topic of concern?
    Really???

    I am way more concerned about Obama's decision to stay with the Bush admin. position on prisons in Afganistan... which have documented torture and abuse.... not to allow any kind of due process, something international human rights groups have been demanding be addressed. The lame arguement that is is foreign soil, (even though they are US bases), is bullshit. Human Rights should know no boundries, they are universal, and should be respected, period.

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  27. Anonymous12:36 PM

    "Yes, more evidence of black men and their long sick fetish for white skin. All these "don't dare call me full black" bi-wishers of the white womb, even the white looking ones want their 15 minute Obama fame. Yawn."

    Or you know, he could be qualified for the job. I don't understand where all this hate suddenly appeared from, when we are all otherwise very intelligent and accepting people. Did he say "don't call me full black"? No!

    And frankly, calling him full black the way he looks would just be misleading. If we extend the one drop rule that far, the whole planet is black by ancient mixing and by virtue of our common african ancestry.

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  28. Anonymous12:43 PM

    He looks a lot like gov patterson too;

    szpork

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  29. I'm way more concerned that on the day Obama announces a stimulus package the market drops 300 points! I'll see ya all in the post-racial soup line.

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  30. Anonymous1:46 PM

    you never stop do you, cry baby???

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  31. Anonymous2:12 PM

    "I'm way more concerned that on the day Obama announces a stimulus package the market drops 300 points! I'll see ya all in the post-racial soup line."

    We were all head for the soup line no matter who won the election in 08. That's just shows how much Bush messed up the economy. We are all looking at four years of poverty. Thanks, Bush!

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  32. "I am way more concerned about Obama's decision to stay with the Bush admin. position on prisons in Afganistan... which have documented torture and abuse.."

    Calling Jody to the O-Aid room, calling Jody to the O-Aid room...no, but seriously, I have some concerns about that as well. But we will see.

    "I'm way more concerned that on the day Obama announces a stimulus package the market drops 300 points! I'll see ya all in the post-racial soup line."

    Come on classical one, hang in there a little longer. We didn't head to the lines under the frat boy, and I can't imagine what could have been worse than that. I think we will eat for awhile. It might not be what we are used to, but we will eat.

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  33. Field, I have always said that I supported the O'man, but that doesn't mean he gets carte blanche... when he fucks up... I will not defend it just cuz its him. And, agreeing to the Bush policy of Bagram prison is a fuck up!

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  34. Anonymous4:57 PM

    I thought that he was black on the very first day that I saw him on CNN. I dont think that he is anything special or even attractive for that matter. Black people...we come in all shades. I never thought twice about his ethnicity!

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  35. Anonymous5:11 PM

    Christ, grow up.

    I agree wholeheartedly Obama should follow through on his promised...hell, every administration should be diverse regardless of promises.

    I am descended from about 12 different European "stocks" with distinct differences but I guess I'm still considered "uniracially" "white." How are we supposed to end racism if we keep drawing lines like this, making having African American blood somehow different from everyone else... What I mean is, when can someone just be who they are instead of some identity thrust onto them by people who don't know them? You don't know the circumstances of his life just because you know his father's skin was probably darker than someone who is "officially white." Is he less of a person because, as someone has suggested, he hasn't hung around enough "officially black" men? Is he a traitor? Cursed by his blood, cursed by the circumstances of his life that might not've given much opportunity to play a "good" bi-racial man who has 50% white friends and 50% black? Imagine former white minorities such as the Irish complaining an Irish cabinet member didn't drink heavily enough or didn't have enough to say about the IRA. Why on earth is it good to think people should live up to racial stereotypes (positive, negative, or neutral aspects)? To fit into that neat little black or bi-racial box?

    Promoting diversity is all well and good, and Obama should be held accountable if he doesn't live up to his promises, but that's a separate issue. It's harming the goals of diversity when you make such a big deal of how someone doesn't act or talk or walk as blackly as he ought to. Isn't the point that we're all just people, and that color or descent shouldn't limit you to a particular destiny?

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  36. Anonymous5:36 PM

    Field Negro, you sound like a color struck Southerner. If the guy says he's Black, He's Black. Hell, my father looks whiter than him and would beat you down if you called him white. He even has a drivers license he got about 40 years ago in NC where the license examiner listed his race as White without even asking him. I remember him bringing it home and showing it to my mother. She was the first to notice that his race was listed as White. He was furious (yes, he turned red. LOL!). Just saying that people are very sensitive about people questioning their ethnicity. I might add that I hardly ever hear light skinned people even bring up color another person's color, but dark skinned people (especially from the South) can't seem to shut up about it even if it has no relevance to the topic at hand.

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  37. Anonymous5:37 PM

    "I wouldn't want him using scholarships and claiming oppression when it's convenient while stepping back into the White world of his daily life with all of its privileges."

    Forgive my probable ignorance, but aren't the advantages one can receive from being a minority based on more than current discrimination? Isn't the purpose to lift people up who, through centuries of racism, ended up in a disadvantaged situation through no fault of their own? Lower socioeconomic class is the biggest one that comes to mind, and having light skin doesn't just "fix" that. I don't pretend to know his situation, but if he had a very poor black father and a very poor white mother, would his white mother disqualify him? Or only if his skin was light enough where you couldn't tell he was poor because his father and ancestors were discriminated against?

    Race seems a poor way to choose people for advantages if we're only tying to fix current discrimination and not heal wounds of the past...so I wouldn't be so quick to disqualify him based on the color of his skin.

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  38. Anonymous6:12 PM

    FIeld, don't you check your yahoo mail?

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  39. Anonymous6:13 PM

    Field, I think what I find fascinating on your blog is the reactions you get from commenters.

    It's great that you can provoke this debate.

    This kind of debate would never happen in England. Everyone is too busy shunning their cultural origins and roots in fear of being 'boxed in' (whatever that means).

    O/T: LOL, Sandra Rose is a hater and I feel that way because she hates on Beyonce until the bells ring for no reason!

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  40. Anonymous7:34 PM

    Years ago when I worked a restaurant. This dude who looked like an all American frat white boy used to come in see his girlfriend who was a server who was lily white herself. He had a good education, graduated with honors and all that couldn't get a job. His problem? His name was Omar. I thought maybe his dad wanted a different name or something like maybe Trigger or Tracker. But that didn't shock me. What shocked me was that his sister came in and she was DARK skinned!!
    Asked if she was adopted, no. His Dad was Arabic and his Mom English. From that day on I never assumed someones "race" because you never know.

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  41. While I, too, would like to see more diverse faces operating the WH press engine, the color green holds more priority these days - first and foremost, we need the fractured economy fixed.
    After visiting "Field," feel free to check out http://asktheblackgurl.blogspot.com

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  42. Anonymous7:58 PM

    Off Topic:
    Hey Field-Negro! I got some "Post Racial Amerikkka" right for ya!
    It involves Pistolvania so I believe this is your beat.
    http://www.arkansasleader.com/2009/02/editiorial-icy-reception-for-repairmen.html

    The Madison County Record, the sprightly weekly newspaper published at Huntsville, the county seat, broke the news first, but the nature of it guaranteed some national attention. Some 100 workers from Pennsylvania, about a third of them African Americans, came down to help the local electric cooperative restore power after the devastating ice storm last month took down just about every power pole in the county. They worked tirelessly clearing trees and putting up poles and lines in the ice and freezing rain to try to speed power to people.

    For their trouble, they were harassed and threatened by roving groups of young men shouting racial epithets and pointing guns at them. The county sheriff said the young men would drive around the work teams waving Rebel flags and cursing the blacks. The workers were frightened enough to contact the sheriff’s office in nearby Washington County.

    Madison County is all white.


    The last time Madison County made national news was the day after the general election in which Sen. Barack Obama was elected president by a landslide. The owners of the Faubus Motel at Huntsville, named after the Arkansas governor who sent the National Guard to Little Rock Central High School to block nine black children from attending classes in 1957, took down the American flag the morning after the election and put up a Confederate flag. The proprietor said the voters of the United States had abandoned the principles of the nation’s founders in electing Obama.

    The Faubus family once owned the motel, but the former governor’s wife, whom he divorced in 1969, sold it in the 1980s and it no longer has any connection with the family. Whatever his historical image, Faubus himself would not have put up a Confederate flag — he counted himself an integrationist and a socialist as a young man — nor would he have condoned the race-baiting.

    Madison County deserves better. It has a place of honor in the sad annals of race and bigotry. When the Civil War came and Arkansas debated whether to secede and join the Confederacy, a schoolmaster from Madison County was the lone delegate at the state secession convention to vote to save the union.


    Looks like Arkkkansaw didn't get the post-racial memo, Fieldy...

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  43. Jody:

    Don't be upset with Obama. President Obama is a man of his word, he intends to do all of what he said he would do. It's something that has come up.

    People don't realize the extent of the damage and what all Bush and his cronies did that has to be undone. The mess is bigger than folks think it is. Nevertheless, all of it is going to come out little by little, bit by bit. The cover will be pulled off and expose some more folks.

    Just be patient, because the man is trying to bring back integrity, law, and order to the White House. Also, he is trying to gain back the respect we lost with other nations while Bush was in office. Right now, the economy is his top priority, because it has left us in a very vulnerable position. The GOP is trying to do everything they possibly can to prevent him from succeeding, but they won't be the winners in the game their playing.

    The GOP governors feigning that they are going to reject the money are full of dung. The real reason they're upset is because of the restrictions that come with the money to keep them honest. They won't able to take this money and squander it with their cronies on all of those under the table, backroom deals they've done in the past. That's what has them hot under the collar.

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  44. What is all the hoopla concerning Burton being biracial? I knew he was, because I can spot them a mile away. There are others up in the White House that are biracial, he is not the only one. It's no big deal. There are a lot of white folks all over America that think that they're white,too, but are not. Passe blanc went deeper than people think. I'm not snitching on them though, because that's somethimg black folks don't do, regardless, if they like them or not.

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  45. Anonymous2:58 AM

    granny...i don't believe you for a second >:) What possible feature leads you to believe he is black? That curly hair could just as easily be Jewish or Middle Eastern.

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  46. lol, where praytell would someone your age be hearing a Young Jeezy song? haha

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  47. Lordy, lordy, lordy. Do you all carry one of those paint chip fans so you can check the tint and hue of people's skin? I rejoice everytime I see a mixed race family. That's the only way this whole stupid game of "who's really black" will finally end. Everybody some day will have a black cousin or a white cousin or a cousin that can't be identified as either. I'm in a mixed race family, and believe me, the walls are not there. We're just family.

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  48. Come on classical one, hang in there a little longer. We didn't head to the lines under the frat boy, and I can't imagine what could have been worse than that. I think we will eat for awhile. It might not be what we are used to, but we will eat.


    I was listening to Ron Paul yesterday, and yes I know, he's nuts. Yet, Paul said something very rational: Why are we still spending a trillion a year on our overseas empire? Why is Obama sending thousands of troops into Afghanistan? Hasn't he read his history? The whole country is a death trap and it's only going to get worse. It's things like this Field that make me wonder if Obama isn't just Bill Clinton part deux.

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  49. Why is he "passing? Is he supposed to "act black" to let everybody know his racial admixture? He may relate to his whiteness than his blackness. Isn't this just as valid in post-racial America?

    This is the fruit of racial mongrelization. You just never know whats gonna pop out when you go a mixin'.

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  50. Why is it NEWS that this man is biracial??

    {yawn}

    Pick any white person out in a crowd and I guarantee you that there is a black person somewhere within four generations...parents...grandparents...great grandparents...there WILL be a black person who was passing... I guarantee you.

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  51. Bill Burton is a smart guy who can respond quickly to reporters. Sometimes he can give more witty responses than policy details, but he's still effective. When I first saw him, I noticed that he had a slight tanned look, so I really just assumed he was white. However, when I saw him after that, I thought that he might be biracial, and it turns out that he is. It doesn't matter, but it just shows that biracial people come in all sizes and skin tones.

    Hope he does more interviews on FOX. He completely shut down that annoying "news anchor" Megyn Kelly several times throughout the campaign. I was glad to see the Obama press aides fight back against FOX News and their 24/7 Obama propaganda.

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  52. Anonymous11:29 PM

    So is the press office "diverse" or not?

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  53. Anonymous11:59 PM

    No matter how many tokens there are in government as long as there are still disparities in health, education, and criminal justice between blacks, hispanics, & whites, America will NEVER be post-racial.

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  54. Anonymous12:53 AM

    I'm trying to understand this! BILL BURTON a BI-RACIAL MAN is hiding his BLACK side, is that right people? can someone, please tell me at what point, did BILL BURTON abandon his BLACK side?

    This young man is descent and intelligent, well educated, and well mannered, and guess what people! he's a BLACK DEMOCRAT, this man could easily be a REPUBLICAN, but, no, he chose to become a DEMOCRAT! and in my opinion that say's a lot.

    BILL BURTON chose to stand with the PRESIDENT, and some of you people, just don't get it! you want him to act GHETTO! you want him to prove himself! he owe's me NOTHING, I'm PROUD of him, look at MICHAEL STELLE, he is a DARK skinned BLACK MAN that let it be known, that he is doing what ever it take's to bring the PRESIDENT down! now can someone, tell me who is more BLACK?

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  55. dalit said:

    I can't tell you how I can tell, because then you would know the secret. (wink) BTW, it has nothing to do with the hair. Nevertheless, I will tell you this, I have some in my family on both sides that are passing and not passing. Passe Blanc was a well-kept secret in the black community, not even a person's enemy would give up that information that is how well-kept it is.

    Aunt Mary:

    I already have a bunch of white cousins. If you could see my family album it would blow your mind. My family comes in all colors and shades. Some of my roots are right there in Louisiana, the home of the mixed folks. I don't have to tell you about the mixing of race that went on there, because it's in history books.

    In addition, I did genealogy research for years and still do. People would be surprise how many folks who thought they were white were almost having a cardiac arrest when they found out the well kept secrets in the family closet. All the need to do is just ask some of those folks who work at places where genealogy records are kept. They could tell many stories about how a lot of people left in shock when they found out the real deal.

    You and I can relate.

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  56. Anonymous10:45 AM

    trumpet,
    I can trace my family back four generations -- to when they lived in Europe. Nothing that's black there... nothing recent anyhow ;-)

    I do have black relatives (Yemeni), but not on my side of the family.

    And to this day, folks walk up to me and ask "are you mixed?" I'm not, so I never get to hear where the conversation goes from there -- and I'm actually getting kinda interested. Maybe next time it comes up, I'll ask.

    I look phenotypically Danish, freckles, brown/red hair and curls. blue eyes too. Somehow this looks mixed to folks (and seeing how some of them say "my mixed cousin looks just like you!" -- genetics is odd!)

    granny,
    wow. those people got issues! though I can see how if you got bonded up in the whole Indian Culture thing, and then learned that your great-grannie was actually Black, how you might be a bit upset.

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  57. Anonymous7:56 PM

    well granny...I got a story about this.
    We once had a "guest speaker" in our school, and his topic was bieng raised by a white mother and finding out that he was black after reuniting with his biological black (light skinned native american/black mix) father. Some sicko psychologist had councelled his mother never to tell her son what he was.

    Anyway apparently his life changed...he wrote a whole damn book about it. But me (indian) and all the black kids were staring at him wondering whether he had ever looked in the mirror, while the white people thought he was purely white. So I guess it's possible that you can tell and I can't in this case :)

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  58. Anonymous3:59 AM

    Black is a state of mind.

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  59. Anonymous7:52 AM

    I'm Black below the waist...

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  60. Anonymous10:17 AM

    Frank you are a bloody bore, please go back to your dreary racist corner.
    You are not contributing anything original or illuminating on here.

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