Mr want it or yes the fact still remains the very first black president of u.s.a tell us and prove it to us if he is not.Dont trow dust in persons eyes you want to tell lies to the young generation or what.

Bull's eye shot. The author of the article seems to be a "professor," a professor of what I care not.

Well, dude professor, if you are a professor, is your professorial training mired in the uncritical parade of sources, water running down stream without a taster?

You quote and quote and quote; critique, critique, critique---nada.

I think I know who you are; but your person ain't the point, your unscholarly attitude is: do you know what the word "critique" means? Professor, it means the determination of the rights and LIMITS of a claim. You boneheadedly push the "rights' button, glibly, en facon soupist, muzzling the "limits" button. What a professor!

At least the soupist professors in soupist occupied Sierra Leone have more mojo: please, stay at Howard University, the conduit to 'white' America of petit bourgeois blacks, mostly 'light skinned,' (for the world outside the USA, American Blacks are obsessed with the 'color' of a body human)or at American University, or return to Bowie.

Spare us, in the name of Zeus, your perchant for grandstanding.

I await your entry into the ring of reflective jab jab.

Warm welcome to do battle in umwwelt reflexion!

Ha Good People! Google John Hanson 1st Black President of the united states. Be your own judge and see if President George Washington was the first president. Then get a magnifying glass and see if you can find the Black Man on the back of the two dollar bill.

I need people to do their own research and not read what I might post on this site. Please, check this out and go to your library and see where the mistakes are.

Also see a little more information on different subjects on the link below: Thanks

http://community.freespeech.org/journal/4052

GEORGE BOSTON RHYNES Retired United States Armed Forces A concerned citizen and brother of humanity

Are you saying that the author of the crap that is not worth the paper on which it is written is a lie, lie journalist and, if, as I suspect, a professor, a professor of lies, or, at best, uncritical historical critical scholarship?

If that is what you mean, rock on: say it! This is a site of the objectification of "freedom of expression," as long as you take a wide and expansive berth from the signature of Sierra Leonean soupist obscurantists: THE MAMMY CUSE, A COMMON PLACE THEY LIBERATED FROM THE SOUPIST STEVENS THE TIFF MAN, BUT BRILLIANT POLITICAL TACTICIAN.

Highest Considerations and Regards.

Are you saying that the author of the crap that is not worth the paper on which it is written is a lie, lie journalist and, if, as I suspect, a professor, a professor of lies, or, at best, uncritical historical critical scholarship?

If that is what you mean, rock on: say it! This is a site of the objectification of "freedom of expression," as long as you take a wide and expansive berth from the signature of Sierra Leonean soupist obscurantists: THE MAMMY CUSE, A COMMON PLACE THEY LIBERATED FROM THE SOUPIST STEVENS THE TIFF MAN, BUT BRILLIANT POLITICAL TACTICIAN.

Highest Considerations and Regards.

Mr. Bangura, the author of the most unscholarly crap ever penned on this site, are you going to take all this prima facie legitimate critique of your boneheaded boto bata laying down?

Ay bra: get up, and fight---I mean in the realm of modus word slings, pardon me, I meant, word strings.

Why don't you explain to the readers the origin of those many degrees that tail your name? And, to be brutally frank, why did you not append them to your name in your lie, lie article, etched in universe egghead lie, lie scholarly mumbo jumbo.

Highest Considerations.

pls. bro 2 knw, dont convc the next generation for us.anyway, i can't blame u 'bcos u r frm s/leone. Tesleem

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS? Soupist English, I suppose.

Anyway, talk sense, bobo!

HIGHEST REGARDS.

Talk sense, dude. Sometimes, pinning to be he "hip," a la mode Ameicaine, is not advisable.

Seriously, if the "next generation" writes the way you do, then soupist Sierra Leone is doomed. Or, shall I suppose you disagree? If you do, come back with lucid prose, not blackberry INDUCED MURDER OF her MAJESTY'S LANGUAGE.

HIGHEST REGARDS.

The "myth" is the six ex-American presidents with "black blood" and that simply, does'nt refute the assertion that Barrack Obama is the "first black" president in the history of AMERICA.This is the issue of "choice" and "ascription" well explained in the book "SELL OUT:The Politics of Racial Betrayal" by Randall Kennedy. The fact of the matter that is the difference is that Barrack Obama is black not just by reason of the one-drop rule alone, but also, that he holds himself out as a black person.Obama is not just merely, carrying some "black blood" he said publicly,he is black for the whole world to hear it, and he evoked his background african roots from Kenya and dos'nt see it as a stigma.WHILE, the true racial facts of the six alleged "first black" American presidents alluded to, before Barrack Obama, were not acknowledged by any of them and they remained in the closet of history.Also a point of correction TONI MORRISON clarified the statement she made of Bill Clinton as being the "first black president" during the heat of the campaign season when she endorsed Obama during the primaries.

I agree with you, my friend. Is this not an exemplar of the well known Sierra Leonean Ph.D syndrome? Assuredly.

However, since I don't believe that there are 'races,' I'll stop here.

Kindest Felicitations.

Obama is half African and half European. This is a fact. He is of mixed ancestry. It is also a fact that there has been other U.S. president who have had some african ancestry. Harding was more than a quarter black. Obama is the first U.S. president to publicly embrace his african heritage. However, in culture, thought and philosophy Obama is Eurocentric. As an Afican American I feel that Obama has more in common with European Americans than anyone else. He will surround himself by fewer blacks than former President Bill Clinton. He will not do much for Africa. I have a thought that he will put a new military base in Africa.

Well this is a very good piece of scholarly information but people generally prefer to accept Obama as the First Black President of the US.

This is generally accepted unlike the info on Harding which is disputed in a number of quarters

Talk about nothing.

What do you mean by "scholarly information"? Beyond that, what TRADITION of scholarship are you referencing? And beyond that, could you produce the evidence, scholarly evidence, I would expect, that another "black" President preceded Obama?

Hope you find the fontological bases at shipwrecked soupist Fourah Bay College and other sites of educational Kroobays in soupist occupied Sierra Leone.

Regards.

ON THE COLOR OF BLOOD

PHEMENOMENOLIGICAL APODICTIC DESCRIPTION:

THERE ARE NO PHENOMENA SUCH AS "BLACK BLOOD" OR "WHITE BLOOD."

Professor Bangura, please refute this transcendental phenomenological contstiutive descriptive theoretical projection; no point hidding behind the mask of journalism, in a vain essay TO HAWK theses you wouldn't dare push, yes, push in CRITTICAL SCHOLARLY CIRCLES, even among bourgeois circles.

HIGHEST REGARDS.

Obama declared himself to be black ok, but thinking about it really, he is not black or white. How can we just call a Obama black? He is not either black or white but a mixture of both black and white.so he may one day declare himself white. Anyway, how can you call a son from a white woman a blackkid?

MY FRIEND ALL PEOPLE ARE BLACK!! ALL FROM AFRICA!!!!

TONY

What? What does the comment supra have to do with the price of tea in Kenya? If you want to debate the existence vel non of 'races', come clean: thunderous dogmatic averments can't cut it. Dig?

Kindest Felicitations.

Barrack might not be the first Black President based on acceptable American definition of who is black, but he is the first to publicly declare himself as black. Harding might have been black but would has lost if he had said so publicly. CHANGE HAS COME TO AMERICA!

Regretably, you are ignorant of American history; hit the history books, homey, and you'll understand that the determination of who is 'black,' 'white,' or whatever is a cultural tradition, coded in verba and cultural attitudes.

Cheers.

According to the evolutionary theories everyone is of African origin. So where does one draw the line? Unfortunately, being Black isn't as easy as having Black blood. How much Black blood should one have to be termed as Black? Race isn't as clear cut as rascists would like it to be. Rascism is irrational and absurd. What one should ask is whether they( the former presidents) were seen as black and whether they accepted themselves as Black. Would they have been able to walk past a lynch mob as a Black person without being harassed? Did they live in Black neighbourhoods? If they had lived in the 50's and 60's would they have been served in white restaurants, would they have used "coloured" toilets and drinking fountains? There have been many mixed race families divided between those who could pass off as being "white" and succeeded in doing so, and those who couldn't. Somehow I do not think that the 5 former presidents would have been at ease hanging out with the brothers in Harlem.

One of the issues we face is the historical context of being labelled as "black" in America. Unfortunately, prior to equal rights for black Americans, many U.S. states defined black in terms of what percent of lineage was black. For example, in Florida, one was defined as black if one was one-eighth black. So, if a person had one great-grandparent who was black and the other seven great-grandparents were white, then the person was defined as black. Which meant they were not allowed to legally marry a white person, not allowed to vote, etc. Thus, this one-eighth black person experienced the same discrimination as someone who was 100% black. This history created an unintended consequence where people like Barack Obama, who have mutiple races in them, can sometimes identify themselves as one particular race based on the treatment they have received. Though Obama is multi-racial, he may identify more with his black heritage than his white. Finally, with respect to the article, I do not find it compelling or scholarly enough to research the article's accuracy. For me, it seems much more likely that Obama is the first black president of the U.S. At the very least, he is the first one to acknowledge his African heritage. With that acknowledgment, I find a great sense of liberation and pride.

Mr Abduls article is very interesting .The article ,I disagree withbut I dont care what colour he is he still president of the country.I want all reading this article to note this well :not one act of violence occurred during our elections and formal challangers shook hands after it was all over with and pledged to support the winner.Obama is the president for all the people and has to administer the country from the middle.Obama inherited a bankrupt country,a country in moral decline, a country whose crediability in the world arena is subjudiced .Therefore I wish him well but America could still function well even without any kind of a sitting president.I voted for Obama now the smoke has cleared lets see if he can deliver

Readers of this article have to a little more careful as to its entire content. In my own mind, what the writer attempts to do is to confuse his readers by makikg them to believe that he is an authority on the subject matter. This writer has already told us from the inception that he was an ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton during the primaries. Since Hillary didn't win who knows whether he did'nt turn to McCain.

Because Barrack has won won and he doesn't want him to be credited as the first black president of the United States of America, this is why he is trying hard to fake history by making us believe that he is not the first black to be elected President of the United States of America.

Finally it is very sad and unfortunate for the write to take other people's opinions most of whom are anti black as he has suggested in his writings, believe them and attempt to make others do the same without substantiated evidence.

Mr. writer, please remember that history will always judge you for what you do now and how you do what you do.

Thanks for the opportunity to have me comment on this issue.

So the professor with all those factory degrees, you say, is a fraud?

I tend to agree.

The real issue is not whether Obama is the first black president of the U.S. empire or not but what that means for black people. The reality is that even if Harding or Hanson or Obama is the first black president, the empire will still be a parasitic one that was born and is maintained through the stolen resources — labor, land, minerals, and even people — of Africa. The reality is that the president whether with a black face or white will maintain that relationship with Africa and her dispersed people. A black president of U.S. imperialism is neocolonialism, just like the black presidents we see all over Africa who maintain the colonial relationship where all of Africa's resources build wealth for Europe and the U.S.

What we need to be focused on is organizing to end the parasitic relationship the U.S. imposes on Africa instead of which black face of that parasitic system was the first.

Greetings everyone. . .

if this is a critique, as one mentioned we should concentrate on establishing "rights and limits". The article's main aim was " Obama wasn't the first black president". So, for a good critique we should establish what "being black" really means. The author himself says "being black is not merely having black blood" which disqualified the other Presidents (the few mentioned).This would disqualify Mr Obama as "not fully black" as well, if we consider his mum was white. One other fellow mentioned that Obama publicly said he is black for the whole world to hear it, and he evokes his background, his african roots from Kenya and doesn't see it as a stigma. Keyword here being "STIGMA". So, I will agree with everyone else but the author that Mr Obama is indeed black, and THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT OF THE USA.

intereting article, shame little or no empirical evidence or photos...

Let's not deal in nonsensical analysis because all those individuals, accomplished or not, did not claim blackness like Obama whose very name and obvious appearance is firmly rooted in muslim africa, and experiences of multi-culturulism in Hawaii, Indonesia and the hard knocks of chicago politics. Gents, the fact is that the others, whose lineage I care little about didn't lay claim to blackness like Barack Obama. In fact being labeled black was scandalous as opposed to Obama embrass of his nature and carry it through the long primary campaign against a most formitable opponent and a general election that tips the presidency into Obama's favor mainly because of a combination of factors and a disfunctional GOP campaign. Granted McCain the best he could with what was at his plate but destiny seem to be in the democracts favor in which any democrat could have carried the day provided they stayed on message.

However, we can't deny the obvious hopes for the world's people because one of 'them', the equivalent impoverished masses in any number of nations of this world is ultimately the most powerful man on earth and should he able to marshal all the powerful nations to normalize the global economic downturn, engage the fractured global allies to common ground, and encourage the most deprived continent to forge ahead to consolidate lasting institutions for better governance. So yes, Barack Obama is the first black presidency of these USA because other didn't claim their blackness which was a disqualifying quality at the time. Even McCain was hurt by the Bush campaign accusation of fathering an adopted Indian child (a black child the bush campaign claimed) in 2000 GOP primary that saw Bush eventually wrestle the white house from the democrats at the height of economic prosperity.

Instead of a disqualifying quality that it has always been, just ask Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, it is a fact of his nature to appeal to the American public to vote for him to manage their affairs for the next fours because the Republican had failed the country and the world in a bad way that emboldened shallow despots like Mugabe to terroralize the very people they are supposed to govern.

hmn! what a professor of ancient history! How many books have you written? My tears on your country's future generation who may have the widest dream on earth to sight your articles not even reading them. Professor, thanks for your informative write-up, I think it will profit you more writing on pages of Sierra-Leone local tabloids than trying to blandish the world history. What a free world and internet, otherwise professor wouldn't have had the colossal impudence to try to paint the world history. With this the oncoming generation will never forgive you. Watch your steps professor! UK

This is a totally ridiculous article and deeply ignorant of American history. John Hanson was not ever the POTUS. He was a president of the Continental Congress, and the third one at that! Additionally, there is no evidence that he was of African descent. Believe me, the U.S. is still racist enough now that Obama election stunned many U.S. citizens who never believed a black man could be elected. 200 years ago it was in fact only white land-owning men who could legally participate in U.S. politics. As an aside, appealing to people to speak the English of someone else's queen is bizarre neo-colonialism. Slang has its use, and it in this case it is used to identify classist old-timers who are nostalgic for European dominance.

to the person who wrote this article: Sierra Leone: Barack Obama is Not the First "Black President" (Concord Times)

That is a ridiculous statement & obviously you are missing the BIG picture.

I should know, I am a 'white' woman who (for the 1st time in my 36 years on Earth) is PROUD OF BEING AN AMERICAN. I am proud that the people of my country made a choice for the right PERSON, not for a political label or because of gender and not because of the color of their skin.

After enduring the last 8 years under the corrupted & disgraceful Bush Administration, it is like a miracle. There is a 'spirit' of goodwill... of change. President-elect Obama brings HOPE on so many levels to so many. It is a shame that anyone would try to belittle what has happened.

I live in the SE US and if you ask the one of the ignorant, religiously fanatical, ultra-conservative, greedy, racist, anti-environmental, anti-human rights,anti-women's rights anti-civil rights, anti animal-welfare, anti-animal rights people {think 'neo-Nazi skinheads} if President-elect Obama is 'black' or 'white', you will get a quick answer of 'black'.

Does this REALLY matter? Why should you try to take away hope from so many?

After all, not too long ago (geographically speaking) WE WERE ALL SWIGGING IN THE TREES.

Prof. Abdul Karim Bangura's academic hustle has finally caught up with him.

Shame on you bro, for exposing universe eggheads to public ridicule.

What a scholar? A fake, you think, perhaps?

Most posters think you are a fraud, Prof. crap.