19 May 2018 Did President Obama Have Any White Privilege?

Did President Obama Have Any White Privilege?

I know that sounds incendiary.  However, people tend to forget that he was just as much white as black.  Now, I concede that the average person who looks at him would say he is black.  Did he get any advantage from being raised by his white grandparents?  That is hard to say.   

He attended one of Hawaii’s most prestigious schools from 5^thgrade through high school.  He attended Columbia University and Harvard Law school.  He excelled at Harvard.  After undergraduate university and law school he chose to work on the south side of Chicago. He wanted to improve the housing and opportunities for people living there. 

Now there is no doubt that his opportunities for education were a lot higher than the people he was working for on the south side.  Education is key to stopping the cycle of poverty that exists in a lot of inner city areas like the south side of Chicago.

President Obama chose to identify as a black man and worked hard to assimilate into the black community.  There is a great part of the country that would not let him identify as anything else. “He looks black so that is what he is” mentality.   I think he would not have been as successful if he chose to identify as white and worked to assimilate into a majority white community.  Not as successful at the political level I mean, he was always going to be successful in the legal field.  

It is very difficult to hypothesize as to any advantage President Obama gained from being raised by his white relatives.  As Morgan Freeman points out, he is not the first black President.  He is the first mixed race President.   

I may not agree with a lot of his political positions but whether or not he gained any “privileges” is irrelevant. He got elected President twice, that is enough is my book.