A little note on racial categories.

In today’s news, The New York Times calls Barack Obama “the first black candidate on a major party ticket.”

The Associated Press writes of his “goal of becoming the nation’s first black president.”

The Washington Post calls him “the first black candidate to head a major party ticket.”

The New York Post calls him the “first black standard-bearer.”

A man from Mars, meanwhile, just arrived on this planet, might ask, if a guy has a black father and a white mother why is he considered black rather than white?

And I ask the same thing.

I suspect the answer is the ancient one of blackness being a stain. You’re not white unless you’re all white. If you’re a little black, you’re black.

I do note that the Daily News referred to Obama as “African-American,” which is strictly accurate in his case, since his father was Kenyan and his mother American.

I also note that the Washington Post declared “black president” was once considered an oxymoron, thus demonstrating that like many other pretentious users of the English language it does not know what oxymoron means. But I’ll let that pass. There are just so many battles I can fight. I’m more interested in a guy who is half black, half white being generally regarded as black.