A Place in Between

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Growing Up Biracial

His mother is white and from Kansas. His father is from Africa; and his wife's name is Michele. Will Jawando, a former staffer to Sen. Barack Obama, says that deciding whether he feels more black or white was a matter decided for him by his appearance and society.

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In searching for a place to anchor, Obama transferred from Occidental College in Los Angeles to Columbia in New York, a period of his life that has not been well-examined. "I figured that if there weren't any more black students at Columbia than there were at Oxy, I'd at least be in the heart of a true city, with black neighborhoods in close proximity."

Obama writes that he was more like black students who had grown up in the suburbs, "kids whose parents had already paid the price of escape." Except he had not grown up in Compton or Watts, he points out, and had nothing to escape "except my own inner doubt."

Obama the candidate has emphasized the richness of multiculturalism, portraying difference as a unifying agent. He has trod carefully in his speeches not to be judgmental, not to cast racial blame on any specific group.

But as a young man still sorting out his identity, he made some judgments about fellow college students who were "multiracial." In "Dreams," he singles out a good-looking freshman named Joyce whose father was Italian and whose mother was part African, part French, part Native American and "part something else." As Obama tells it, Joyce was not interested in attending a Black Students Association meeting --"I'm not black. I'm multiracial" -- and complained that it was blacks, not whites, who put pressure on her to choose a singular identity.

As Obama saw it, people like Joyce talked about the wonderful tapestry of their heritage and it sounded good "until you noticed that they avoided black people." This was the way integration typically worked, Obama writes. "The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around. Only white culture could be neutral and objective. Only white culture could be nonracial, willing to adopt the occasional exotic into its ranks."

The Obama who is running for president today would surely not be so tough on Joyce.

"He is a product of that combined heritage," says Valerie Jarrett, his close friend and adviser from Chicago. "What he realizes is how much we have in common. He's looking at people and looking for the good in them. He sees the world in similarities and doesn't get polarized by differences."

While Jarrett anticipates that Republicans will step up their efforts "to try to make him different," she adds: "I have confidence in Americans' ability to see through superficial labels."

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During a recent campaign bus tour through Ohio, Obama and Sherrod Brown discussed Jawando. The topic was basketball. Brown proposed that he team up with Obama's body man, onetime Duke University player Reggie Love, in a two-on-two game against the presumptive nominee and Jawando. Brown told Obama that he had heard about his right-to-left crossover dribble, and that he would strip him if he tried that move in their game.

"Don't trash-talk me on my own bus," Obama shot back.

Brown, who sat out the primary campaign, had told Obama that he would endorse him "on the condition you won't take Will away" when elected. To which Obama replied: "I won't make that promise."

Brown knows of Jawando's heritage and is amazed by the similarities between his young aide and Obama. What he prefers to talk about, however, is the "major role" Jawando played working on the higher education reauthorization act that President Bush recently signed.

But this is a historic election season, Brown acknowledges, one in which race and identity matter. "I guess we're going to prove this year that someone who is an African American, regardless of whether he's biracial, can be elected president. There are people in every state who will have trouble voting for someone who is not white. But it will be a tribute to this country that people were willing to put aside the issue of race. I think the overwhelming majority in Ohio will vote colorblind."