The unexpected benefit of the Obama presidency

Let's pretend that in honor of the recent anniversary of last year's historic election day I offer this post.

Wanda Sykes has her new late night talk show premiering this Saturday, which I expect won't suck as much as most talk shows, and part of why I say that is because recently we watched her very funny HBO comedy special (I'ma Be Me).

One of the topics she discussed was her excitement over having a black president. She conceded his mixed-race heritage, and then jokingly admitted if he ever messed up really bad she'd change her tune to "Who voted for the half-white guy?"

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If my wife and I have children of our own (that is, specifically by my sperm combining with her egg) they will, technically, be of mixed race. Which is to say they will be similar to the President Obama.

I already know that if the scenario where we have these children comes to pass that my children will have skin tones that won't match mine, and at some point I'll be out with the kids but without my wife and someone will come up to us and, thinking my children adorable (which, of course they will be), say something inadvertently stupid wherein the person will assume the children were adopted. The person's intention undoubtedly will have been to compliment me for taking on the responsibility of helping some children in the foster care system, but they will be falling prey to the cultural bias against mixed race heritage; a lot of people do reproduce with someone of the same race and thus their offspring resemble them in that way, and so it's not inexplicable that such is the paradigm that a lot of people still use for making such assumptions.

As insulting me presumably will not be the intended result of the situation I won't consider it appropriate to get offended and respond with anger. Yelling, "Listen, dumbass, you need to pull your head out of the 18th century!" seems unlikely to help educate the person to have a broader spectrum of ideas about such things. Also, I won't deserve to be praised for something I didn't do. So perhaps I will smile politely and softly explain, "Thanks, but they're not adopted. You see, they're like the president; my wife and I are similar to the president's parents (but reversed)."

In this vision the person nods in acknowledgment, understanding the reference without requiring me to explain further, and, most important, without feeling horribly embarrassed. Perhaps the person is a little wiser for the experience.

And that's all thanks to fact that there'll be a well-known public figure to whom I can allude, who got elected to the White House. Regardless of one's political affiliations, everyone knows who the president is.

I think that explanation will sound a lot classier than, "Thanks, but really all I did was get my wife knocked up."

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There's an alternate scenario wherein some idiot makes an obviously insulting remark and I kick his ass, but let's keep it positive. And that one has not even an indirect link to the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., so I can't tie it in with today's ostensible thesis.

Which, for some reason, I'm considering pertinent at the moment.

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And rest assured:  I will be very motivated to teach our potential children that if they grow up and go into politics to make sure they don't screw up. It won't merely be for the country's sake but for mine as well.

Ba-dump-chik.