Michele Obama -- First (Black) Lady in Spain

Meltingpot readers,

I don't know where to begin. First, I saw this annoying article this morning that claims Americans are annoyed that First Lady Michelle Obama gets to have a lavish vacation in Spain while the country is in a recession.

Then I got annoyed when I started reading some of the 3000 plus comments that of course, have to rapidly deteriorate into overt racism in terms of justifying why the First Lady can't take a vacation.

But what's more, I almost did a double take by the line in the story that said that the State Department had actually issued a warning for African-Americans traveling to Spain. Seeing as how the story was on Yahoo, I didn't believe it at first, but I did my own poking around and found several references to this 'travel advisory for African-Americans traveling to Spain.' Apparently there was such a warning based on several African-Americans being unfairly harassed and/or arrested by Spanish police. The warning was indeed yanked by the State department before the First Lady's arrival. For a full account of that story, you can read here.

For some reason, knowing that the State Department felt justified in issuing this warning takes my anecdotal evidence of Spain's peculiar attitude towards Black people to another level of reality and potential danger. Not just annoyance. When the police are implicated in a country's racist behavior then one does have to take the warnings a little more seriously than those issued by an author and blogger with a Spanish husband. Will I still happily travel to Spain? Absolutely. I can't wait for our next trip. But will I pay a little bit more attention? Will my racism radar be switched on? Probably.(sigh)

And just to leave you with a question. If the US government warns African-Americans who travel to Spain to be careful because the Spanish police are racist, what kind of warning are they issuing for their own citizens seeing as how Black men get falsely arrested, shot, pulled over and harassed almost every day? Is there a warning for that somewhere on a website?

Peace.

More Obama Relatives in the News

First Obama's half brother, Mark Ndesandjo, enters the world stage after living a quiet life in China, to announce the publication of his semi-autobiographical novel Nairobi to Shenzhen. And now it has been revealed that Obama's aunt (his father's half sister) is living in the United States as an illegal immigrant pending deportation.

Like Ndesandjo, Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango reportedly is expecting no special treatment because she is related to the President of the United States. In fact, she told the Associated Press, "I carry my own cross. [Barack] has nothing to do with my problem."

You can read Onyango's complete story on The Grio and decide for yourself if you think she's going to get special treatment or if she deserves it. I think whether she deserves it or not, who wants to be the immigration official who deports the president's auntie?

In some ways, I don't think it is realistic or even possible to try to be completely objective when dealing with issues of celebrities or public figures. If someone is related to a super star, it is almost human nature to want see if their superstar qualities flow through the DNA of the rest of the family. Inquiring minds just want to know. And that's not always a bad thing. For example, Obama's mother's 1992 anthropological dissertation has just been released by Duke University Press as the book, Surviving Against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia. It's a totally academic tome, yet the author's connection as Obama's mama is slapped on the front of the book. You can read more about the book here.

So, considering Obama has a handful of other half-siblings and relatives around the world I don't suspect this is the last family skeleton to fall from the closest. I just hope the American public and media don't get too caught up in the hype. What do you think?

Peace!

The Secret Life of Obama's Brother

Am I the last Obama fan to know that our president has a biracial (Jewish and Kenyan) half brother, Mark Ndesandjo, who lives in China and is married to a Chinese woman?

I mean I've read his memoir. I've read all the Obama children's books. I even keep my own Obama scrapbook and yet when I caught the brief headline in Time magazine last week, that Obama stopped by to visit his half-brother in China during his official Asia trip, I did a double take.

Now, I'm generally not a pessimist, but doesn't it just seem like every president has to have a creepy and/or slightly embarrassing brother hiding in a closet, just waiting for the right time to expose his creepy and/or embarrassing habits on the public stage? I'm not saying this is true about Obama's brother, at all. I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if a little something scandalous doesn't come out soon.

Right now the media seems to be respecting his privacy. The fact that he lives in a small province in China probably makes it easier for him to lay low, although now that he has his own new self-published, semi-autobiographical novel to promote, he may want a little bit more publicity. Can I just ask, why can't presidential siblings just have really normal jobs and boring lives that nobody would care about?

I'm not going to judge, but as Dick Cheney might say, I'm staying on high alert. What do you think? Will we hear more from and about Mark Ndesandjo? Good stuff or bad stuff? Here's some basic information about him from the Associated Press.

Peace.

PS. You still have a few more hours to post your entry in Friday's comments for a chance to win a book and a t-shirt.

What If Michelle Obama rocked an Afro?

Seriously, this is just a question. After purchasing the current People magazine with the beautiful Obama family on the cover, I had to stop and wonder.

If the Obama girls (wife and daughters) sported natural hairstyles -- afros, dreds, braids, -- would that be an issue on the road to the White House?

I think Black hair is still political, so I think it would. I think Barack's campaign advisor would definitely have called a hair meeting and demanded the ladies straighten their locks because the American people are not ready for that level of Blackness.

What do you think Meltingpot readers? Can you think of a moment in time when a hairstyle made a difference? I thought of a bunch of them and wrote a book about it called Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America. Check it out if you want some perspective.

Peace and Hair Grease!