So Barack Obama is black. BFD I say. I’m a minority too and it makes me wonder if he’s just black, or really a minority. I think there’s a difference. I know there is. It’s not about percentage of melanin in the skin either. I know white kids that grew up as minorities, I know black kids that are growing up in a community where they are the majority. I was a minority growing up – my husband was a white minority….Allow me to elaborate…I grew up in a small town, with a small town mentality that was essentially labor class and 99% white. Later, I went to Villanova, which at the time was referred to mockingly by free thinkers and those with a miscegenetic bent alike as “VANILLA-Nova” calling out the total whiteness of the school. Later I lived in the great city of Philadelphia , where the black population outruns the white by 2:1…so while the city was full of black people, they were not in fact minorities.

I wonder if it’s the same in Chicago ? I wonder if Barack was taunted not for being black, but for being half-white? Philly was like that, de facto segregation abounded in this “city of neighborhoods” so a native Philadelphian would describe his residence not by his geographical location in the city (north, south, uptown, downtown), but by neighborhood, and everyone would know what that meant. I lived in Brewery Town , a sub-neighborhood of the larger neighborhood of Fairmount – technically the north central section of the city, by the park. In South Philly, people would go so far to describe their locale by Parish – and again that meant there was a majority and a minority. I remember someone from South Philly, in an Italian neighborhood, relating to me how he was teased mercilessly because his mother was Italian and his father Irish – so he had a McLastname – and this was not in the times of the Irish immigrant worker influx of the 1920s. This was in the 80s, friends.

So what does it mean to be a minority? How is it different? We tend to understand each other’s pain a little better. We know by default what it’s like to live in the margin. It’s even worse for those of us who weren’t accepted by either the majority or the minority communities to which they supposedly belonged. I have black friends that grew up “white” for example – and they are treated differently by both groups of people. My husband knows. He was half-Greek and half-Xeni (white, in Greek) – didn’t matter that the Xeni half converted to Orthodoxy and in fact was much more of a fundamentalist in the church than many of them…what mattered was that he didn’t fit. So in school, in rural upstate New York , he was an outsider. Like me.

In childhood, for both of us, it shook out like this…we were different, our church was different, our food, our home life, our clothing, our communities…our everything. Did it matter? Yes! It mattered so much to everyone – the kids on the playground teased and taunted. In my town, there was an influx of Paki families, whose children were much younger than my sisters and me and so this pocket of minorities at least had a modicum of strength in community. I did not. The new generation of children in fact had a sense of self, of identity, of belonging at least to one community. I grew up hearing words like “sand nigger” and “camel jockey” either hurled in anger or said in mocking tones – it was all the same – upon the influx of South Asians, and without any other slur, there was one invented one morning “Paka-Chink”; it did make sense, Pakistan bordered on China, and I myself do have both Chinese and Indian features…plus the weird name and background, all fodder for ridiculing the brown girl.

What was it like for Barack I wonder? He had the weird name, okay, I could see myself mocking in 3^rd grade…barracks, bo-rock, rockhead….I have this theory that people with odd names grow up tough. I did. At first I just fought. I mean really fought – fist fights in the play ground, and as the youngest, shortest, lightest kid in the class, I still held my own with boys older than me. I remember using every tool possible – biting, kicking, punching (one year, I punched my mother’s cousin in the face and knocked a tooth out – a family legend that lives to this day – I think I was 7). Eventually, I learned the tool that would serve me best, sarcasm. So today, I know why Muhammad Ali was so tough, someone like me sat behind him in 3^rd grade and was relentless I’m sure. Cassius, what kind of name is that? Cashews? No wonder you’re nuts! Get it, cashews are nuts, get it Cassius? Why wouldn’t he become the heavyweight champion? He must have carried a heavy weight burden. Same with Riddick Bowe (I can almost hear the playground chanting “Riddick-ulous, hey Riddick-ulous”).

All this to say what? This: I don’t think Barack Obama is a minority. He doesn’t come across as one. Why would he cow tow to societal pressure like that? Why isn’t he tough, instead of smarmy? Why is he a politician instead of a boxer, a fighter? Maybe he thinks he is, but nobody gets this far without a pretty clean closet. Mine has so many skeletons it looks like that’s where the Golden Hind eventually wrecked itself. That’s why he’s not a minority. He’s too sure of himself. He’s too glib…if he was a real minority, someone would find something out about how he got through that awful time of self-loathing – be it pills, booze, fighting or womanizing, he had to go through something to get to this place.

Someone will be smart enough to figure it out. Or maybe I just did. Barack Obama is not a minority. For those of you white people who think this is about black and white, it’s not. He’s more a part of you than you think. If you’ve never felt the sting of a racial slur, the insult of being mocked for not belonging based on superficial qualities like ethnicity or religion, then you are not in fact a minority. If you aren’t then Barack is one of you, so you should go ahead and vote for him. It’s okay. People love to tell me all the time “I don’t see you as a minority, maybe it’s because you talk so white. You’re like a regular girl to me.” It’s only because you see what you want to see, or I haven’t shown you my scars.

Being able to sense the pain in someone else, the secret look in their eyes that says “yup, I’ve been there. I am broken on the inside” – that’s a secret skill that I have. Some people have gay-dar, I have gray-dar…I look for people who live in a world of gray, neither black nor white, falling through the cracks and existing somewhere in between. I look into the eyes of people in limbo and I instinctively know, we are one. I understand you and you understand me – in an instant it becomes clear. I don’t see it Barack. Sure, he’s not black or white, but he’s not gray either. Maybe he’s a recovering minority. Maybe he’s in a 12-Step program liked “Mixed Race Anonymous” only it wouldn’t be that anonymous, because people can see you. It’d be like a “secret” club with a bright red door on it – not that big a secret, right?

So what is the secret then Barack, how did you “struggle” with your identity? You gloss over it an awful lot. You tell tales of your childhood woes. They couldn’t have been that bad, dude. Trust me, if I told you my tales, we'd both cry, and I don’t cry. Ever. It’s made me that tough. You don’t seem that tough to me, B. I think I could take you. Not just because you’re skinny either (that’s advantage me for sure) but because you’re mentally skinny. You couldn’t go 10 rounds with me verbally – not even 3 rounds physically, you’d pray for that bell. I don’t trust you B, I gotta say – I’m just not feeling it today. My gray-dar tells me that you aren’t who you say you are. Instead of showing up swinging, ready to do battle, you played the other card, the “I’ll beat them at their own game” card…way to go Mr. Brady…the rest of us live in the real world, where beating them means beating them, plain and simple. Why do you even care what the majority thinks? I know why…because you’re one of them. You eat, sleep and breathe “MAJORITY” and guess what? You’re a sad politician like the rest of them. You’re a breath of fresh air like a Twinkie is a delicious wholesome treat the whole family can enjoy while choking down the preservatives and artificial coloring that comes inside the neat little package. You sir, are just that. Artificial color. Artificial flavor. You are not a minority.