Granted, Peter, but biracial kids generally identify with the folks
within a racial group that has the greatest impact on their lives.  Now
in my (eldest) daughter's case, she married a black fellow and both his
parents and Laura and I would do anything we could to raise their
children were something bad to happen.  I'm sure Ben's parents feel the
same way.  I would expect these kids to "imprint", if you will, with the
racial group of their custodial grandparents.  Like it or not, we all
identify with one race or another--to some extent it shapes who we are.

That being said, I have a few friends who are progeny of mixed-raced
marriages and they've said to a person that they group up feeling
neither fish nor fowl--that kids from either races shunned them growing
up.  Obama was lucky for two reasons: 1) He was raised abroad until the
fifth grade when he moved to Hawaii to live with his maternal
grandparents.  Hawaii is probably the most racially homogenized of the
50 states.  2) His grandparents were relatively wealthy--enough so that
they were able to send him to private boarding school (Punahou School).
Not very many parents can afford this.  A tiny fraction of those are
black.  I doubt seriously that he personally has felt anything like the
full brunt of racism experienced by his black contemporaries.

Kyle

-----Original Message-----
From: Cerebral Palsy List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Peter Hunsberger
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 11:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: interested in others take on this....

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 10:43 AM, KE Cleveland <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> I wonder why Obama identifies himself as "black" when his mother, and
the
> grandparents that, supposedly, were so instrumental in his upbringing
were
> white?

Who you were raised by does not change your genetics / race ...

-- 
Peter Hunsberger

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