so... a few days after one of the biggest elections in history (largest voter turnout in nearly 50 years), what is the topic of conversation?? whether or not categorizing president elect obama as the first african american president is socially correct? really?!  with all that this world is facing, this nation is facing, the next president is facing, whether or not he's really african american is the topic of conversation?

questions are going around, why isn't he considered the first biracial or multicultural president? there's one simple answer... what do people see when they look at obama... the color of his skin. obama in a 2004 interview on pbs even said, "If I'm outside your building trying to catch a cab. They're not saying, 'Oh, there's a mixed race guy.'" it's a shame that the color of a man's skin still triggers in most people a gut reaction to cateogorize and prejudge, but it's a fact of life. maybe one day in the future the cultural lines will blur so much that this won't even be a topic of conversation and we'll all just see one another as a part of one race... the human kind, but that is a long, long way off.

yes, obama is half white, a side he does not shun. in fact, he embraces both his white and african american heritages. everyone should be proud of who they are and the counterparts that help make that possible. but i pose a question to you, how likely would all this have been if he was truly 100 percent african american? i guess it's the synic in me, but my gut tells me, had he been what people are trying to argue as being a "true" african american, he would not have won the presidency. i doubt he would have even won the democratic party's vote to be their next presidential candidate against hilary. maybe i'm wrong, but i guess we'll never know.

obama's win was truly an historic event. it will be something that  people will look back at many, many years from now as a very notable/memorable event in this county's timeline. and i have to say, that calling him the nation's first african american president is doing more good than harm. if categorizing him that way allows a group of people, who in this country's past have been and continue to be in the present, beaten down, prejudged and in many ways limited... i say more power to that label. if that 50 percent allows those of african american decent to identify with him, claim him as one of their own and it inspires hope/empowerment for a race that i feel deserves to have some after so many years of struggling... where is the harm in that?

did you guys see the 4x100 freestyle mens swimming relay? duuude that was a good one. team usa brings it in the last leg...anchor jason lezak swam his 100m in 46.0. wow. team usa wins by 8 hundredths of a second. can't get any more nail biting than that. i love watching the summer olympics.