What did you think of all the other Rev. Wright sermons, that didn't focus on these hot button issues? I assume from your comments above, with the comparisons of black churches to the KKK, that you watched them all as well?

I don't think anyone suggested you were making an issue after the facts. More to the point, you seemed to be picking and choosing your issues.

And, the answer is, False. Rather glaringly False, if you've read any of Obama's stuff or listened to his speeches, before he ran for Pres.

Or are you picking and choosing which things you feel should be an issue?

And incidentally, if you're talking about Jeremiah Wright, I assume you're doing so as a white man. Guess what, I'm a white man, too, and it just does not bother me. So why do you have a problem with it and I don't? Toughen up and stop whining.

But his refusal to marry this couple could be the result of his conditioning as a Bible literalist in fundamentalist churches. Because I myself heard that teaching, I will briefly relate them here.

The first theory is that God divided the races at the Tower of Babel and those who were determined to build a tower that stretched all the way to heaven suddenly looked around and discovered that some of their fellow-workers were Black, some were Chinese, etc. The second theory is that Blackness is literally the “Curse of Ham.”

Though I reject both of these, it becomes easier to understand how someone who embraces either of these theories could arrive at the decision of this judge.

Personally I don't know anyone that didn't have problems grrowing up, even the ones who seemed to come right of a Leave-it-to-Beaver home. And racial “purity” certainly is no indicator of
a blissful childhood. My family is as pure as it gets, both sides from the same part of the Old Country. You could write a steamey mini-series on the dysfuntions in just one generation.

As others have pointed out, our attitudes toward family and children have changed over the last few decades and those attitudes are still evolving. It was less than a hundred years ago that children were deemed property under the law, as were wives.Laws regarding inheritance and property rights reflected what we now consider to be very archaic views. Perhaps this incident will get people thinking a little more about acceptance and how silly some of the old ways really were and how silly it is to hang on to ignorant old habits.

Consequently, a child sired by the owner of a slave women, could be regarded as non family and sold on.

This attitude also extended to children born out of wedlock, and hence some of the historical demand for abortion as such children had a very poor future, and the attitude to their mothers were and are (?) stigmatised.

At least the children of extended Chinese families, ie from concubines etc, were and still probably are, regarded as family with some rights and privileges including preferential acceptance into the family business where provided they have the ability, are highly trusted, as the are ‘family’. Outsiders will not be easily included into he core of the family business.

While I have focused on the issue of who is ‘family’. I feel that this attitude is equally applied to any outsider, so that the other has not significance at all. Bit harsh, but how else does one explain institutionalized or cultural discrimination of any form. ‘Not one of us, so have no obligations, tough!”

Time to question attitudes and challenge these concepts, uncomfortable they may be. These are cultural concepts which should be seen as inconsistent with the basic message of Christianity.

Time for a bit of constructive deconstruction.

I haven't corresponded with them in quite a few years; but, they did send me a photo of the three of them. The boy was very handsome and perfect shade of “cafe au lait” in my opinion.

They adopted the boy after I moved back to Tulsa, Oklahoma from North Hollywood, CA.

Although my English ancestor, Edward Doty, came over on the Mayflower, the US Government doesn't issue documents that I can carry in my wallet to prove that. But, I have a card issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs stating that I have Cherokee Blood and I also have a card from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma that has my membership roll number on it.

When it comes to people, in my opinion, there is only one race, the human race.

Also, I couldn’t help but notice that the judge isn’t the only one showing a preference for things to be presented as either black or white: How can America still have a race problem when it elected a biracial President? How can one judge still make an issue of race, when America has handled its race problem? (Shocking.) How can biracial people face a lack of acceptance when some biracial individuals “don’t seem to have suffered at all, but have prospered instead?”

Things aren’t always conveniently One or The Other. I bet all the folks you mentioned could tell stories of how they’ve personally been hurt at times by others’ attitudes and actions. It’s not a question of whether they’ve suffered OR succeeded. They’ve done both. It’s such an odd statement in the first place, it suggests that they “don’t seem to have suffered at all, but have prospered instead” due to being biracial. I doubt that their success is due to their biraciality, hopefully it has more to do with being smart, talented, in some cases beautiful, and having worked really hard to get where they are.

Everything isn’t always Either/Or. Sometimes it’s a bit of both. Hey, kinda like some people are. Why is that so terribly inconvenient for our minds to grasp?

We get tagged as a racist country, but one nice thing we do is have a 'welcome to country' at the start of official Government functions. It asks people to recognise the original owners of the land (Ngunnawal country is where I live) and to pay respects to their elders, past and present.