Gary Welsh over at Advance Indiana (link expressly not provided) is now in the business of determing the racial provenance of self-identified African Americans. Here's what he had to say about Senator Barack Obama;

Here's how Kenneth Lamb explains Obama's ancestry:

"Mr. Obama is 50% Caucasian, that from his mother. What those who want Mr. Obama to write history by becoming "America's first African-American president" ignore is that his father was ethnically Arabic, with only 1 relative ethnically African Negro - a maternal great-grandparent (Sen. Obama's great-great grandparent, thus the 6.25% ethnic contribution to the senator's ethnic composition.).

That means that Mr. Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother's side. He is 43.75% Arabic, and 6.25% African Negro from his father's side.

Put another way, his father could honestly claim African-American ethnic classification. He was the last generation able to do so.

Sen. Obama could honestly say, "My father was African-American." Racist presumptions led an Ivy League admissions committee, and lazy "newspapers of record" factcheckers, to presume that if his father is African-American, then Sen. Obama must be African-American also.

But it doesn't work that way. Racist presumptions coupled with sloppy vetting don't turn a lie into the truth.

Sen. Obama is one generation too far removed from the ethnic African Negro input to make the same claim as his father, Harvard's Admission's stamp of approval notwithstanding.

As you can see for yourself, Sen. Obama's African-American ethnic claim, when properly researched and documented, is a lie.

The question no one wants to answer - particularly Mr. Obama and his supporters, is, "Why do you think he has an Arabic name? Why does his father have an Arabic name? Why does every ancestor on his father's side have an Arabic name?"

The answer is obvious: They have Arabic names because his father's side of the family tree is Arabic.

Need proof? Research the Kenyan records for yourself. You will find that his father was officially classified as "Arab African" by the Kenyan government.

But in America's current political climate, that truth is heresy; that truth is "an inconvenient truth." It is the political equivalent in our time to what Galileo's scientific pronouncements were in his time: it is true, but nobody wants to know the truth because the lie is so much more comforting.

That is why detractors of this truth will do everything to denounce it, except submit to the discipline of actually researching it.

There's a reason for that: it proves he is not sufficiently Negro to earn classification under American law as an African-American.

For Sen. Obama, telling the truth means he will give up all the accolades about being the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, an accolade that relies on a sleight-of-hand in job titling that changed the name of the top job from Editor to President.

If stated in its absolute truth, Mr. Obama was the second person of color to run the Review. He was beat to the Review's top spot by a true African-American about 60 years before Mr. Obama showed up for classes.

Again, a very inconvenient truth."

Disgusting. I'm offering my response here--a response I posted yesterday and which, oddly, is not to be found on his website today--because I'm certain that Gary will not allow it to be posted:

I am of black African descent with white European ancestors and family still living on the reservation out west. I also have a name that originates in India and is very common there.

Does that make me Hindu? Am I Black enough for you? Or should I divvy up my race the way you've attempted to bi--no, multi-sect--Senator Obama?

Senator Obama's race or ethnicity is what he says it is. I find it insulting that <b>any</b> person, given the long and unfortunate history of whites making up names to call people who weren't from Western Europe (like negro, colored, mulatto, quadroon or octaroon), even attempt to tell a Black-identified man what he should or shouldn't call himself.

Don't like the insinuation? Let me make this clear: Bigot is as bigot says and does. If the shoe fits, lace it up so as least you don't trip.

In the Black community, there is a long, painful history of insults, division and fractionalization based of skin color, hair texture, educational attainment and speech pattern. Familial bonds have been broken because the members couldn't get past their own wounded racial identities. We're not proud of it, and are doing our best to try to stem the ill effects of this internalized racism. Given the fact that upwards of 85% of people of Black African descent are multi-racial/multi-ethic, it makes your assertion, AI, ridiculous. Senator Obama just has more recent history of his admixture, assuming that his mother was only of European descent and not, partly Native American or, say, Asian.

Just to add to the discussion, please know that many of the people sold into slavery in the US and abroad were muslim captives. Part of their indoctrination as slaves included being forced to work on their Sabbath and eat pork, as well as splitting people up so that they would not be with their countrymen or women with whom they shared language and religion.

Guess that means, by your definition, I should have been celebrating the Eid al Fitr, as well.

There's an old saying from the African continent: "It's not what they call you. It's what you answer to."

Senator Obama chooses to answer to Black or African American, as do I. Luckily for us, our identity doesn't need your approval.

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