Ignoring the other headlining New York politician for a moment, I would like to take note of Geraldine Ferraro's comment yesterday about how Barack Obama is "lucky" to be a black man, for he surely wouldn't be in the position he is in right now (winning, for those who don't keep up) if that were not true. A lot of people are questioning her choice of words and finding them to be offensive, inaccurate, or both. I, for one, am left scratching my head.
To start with, Obama had two parents, one black and one white. How is he black? Isn't he as much white? What makes Geraldine Ferraro, when looking at someone of mixed parentage, think black rather than white? This is where Ferraro's comments, particularly the use of the word "lucky", strike me as ignorant.
Obama, faced with a conundrum early in life and guided by his unequalled ambition and cunning, chose to be black rather than white and presumably made that choice knowing that nothing could be more useful to his future Presidential ambitions than being seen as a "black" man. After all, what sort of power had white men ever secured in this country of ours? Being black was the obvious choice. Therefore, I conclude that it was not "luck" that made Obama black, but rather a conscious choice informed solely by a drive to seize as much power as humanly possible.
"Luck" more accurately describes Mel Carnahan's situation in 2000. While running for the U.S. Senate seat in Missouri against John Ashcroft, behind in the polls, Carnahan had the good fortune to die in a plane crash. A month later, he won that election and his wife Jean stepped in to perform his Senatrial duties. Had he not been dead, Carnahan never would have won that race and John Ashcroft would have been a U.S. Senator rather than a crazy old Attorney General.
In summary, it is lucky to die. It can be lucky to be black, but in Obama's case, it was not luck - he could have just as easily been white, after all! - he chose to be black.
