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Obama's Run Forces Debate on Black Identity

Candidacy highlights growing divides in black America

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 23, 2008 12:05 PM CDT

(Newser) – Barack Obama's candidacy has drawn overwhelming support from the black community but also sparked debate on how much of a community it really is. The Wall Street Journal examines how Obama's international and biracial heritage highlights the growing diversity of black America, and some of the tensions this has created.

Some feel Obama is a symbol of a growing class divide among African-Americans, noting that black immigrants and their children tend to fare better than the native born. Others believe the candidate can help bridge that gap by making middle-class blacks less likely to shy away from their roots. "Obama hasn't sacrificed his blackness," said the director of a Harlem social-services agency. "He has senators doing the homeboy hug."

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (3)]

Barack Obama is hugged by a pedestrian while the Rev. Al Sharpton, right, looks on before an Obama fundraiser in the Harlem section of New York, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2007. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Barack Obama eats shaved ice with his daughters Sasha, 7, left, and Malia, 10, at Island Snow in Kailua, Hawaii, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Barack with his wife, Michelle Obama, and daughters Malia, 10, bottom, and Sasha, 7, step off the plane in Honolulu, Hawaii, Friday, Aug. 8, 2008. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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On the one hand it's beautiful we are diverse. But can we become so fragmented that we don't share anything? - Prudence Carter, an African-American sociologist

Obama will give our kids an image, someone they can look at on television who looks like them. He gives our youth someone to look at and say, 'Look where you are. You can go as far as you want to.' - Anthony Moore, a Washington DC community activist

I didn't have the luxury, I suppose, the certainty of the tribe. I hadn't grown up in Compton or Watts. I had nothing to escape from except my own inner doubts. - Barack Obama in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father

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Obama's Run Forces Debate on Black Identity