How black is black ?

It is strange that the whole world is referring to Barak Obama as " the first black American president " - because he is not black !

Obama's ancestry stems from a black Kenyan father and a white American mother, and in any reasonable sense he is therefore half black and half white.

This does not detract from the fact that for the first time in history a man with some black blood in his veins has attained the highest office in the land, and in the future it has set precedent that may include all manner of races, including Inuit, members of the native tribes - and Latinos.

It is also inevitable that somewhere in the future - and most probably the very near future - American will elect a woman as it's president.

It seems strange that people of all colours are ignoring the white blood element that goes as part of the person who is Barak Obama. It is understandable that America's blacks are proud of his achievement and cling to the hope that his attaining office will bring about a change in the attitudes that have dogged their race for so many centuries.

At the same time white Americans seem to have dismissed the half of their president which is white - and view him as a totally black man.

The colour of America is changing, and probably Barak Obama represents the colour of the future.

Inter marriage of black and white was almost unheard of a century ago, and now a huge proportion of the population is of mixed blood. Viewing any crowd scene at a sporting events presents a vista of black and white, but an ever increasing number of people whose skin shade is somewhere in between.

This is becoming the face of America - but if you look closely - it is also fast becoming the face of the world in which we live !