Meet Maya Soetoro-Ng (aka: Obama's Sister)

In light of last night's Democratic primary victory in South Carolina by Senator Barack Obama, I thought I'd post a link to a New York Times interview with Obama's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng (click here).

Things are really heating up for both parties as they approach Super Tuesday. Honestly, I can't remember things being so tight or so exciting going into any national election. I hope things don't also get too ugly.

I also think it's interesting that Barack Obama, while self-identifying as a black man, is also self-revealing about his mixed-race/transnational/transracial background. And it makes me wonder...because the truth is, most people are "mixed"--if you don't just buy into the purity of the American racial pentagram (white-black-Asian-Latino-Native American) and if you especially realize that most white and black Americans who are 4th and 5th generation and above have some inter-mixture in their families, then really, there are probably all sorts of tangled family lines in Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Romney and Huckabee's family trees (should I also mention Rudy, although does anyone think he's really in it anymore?).

Wouldn't it be great if, as a way to get beyond the ugliness of the "racialized/racist" atmosphere of these primaries we could get all candidates in both parties to talk frankly and candidly about the mixed race nature of their own family trees....Who wouldn't love to hear those tales told...but yes, that'd happen as quickly as our sitting administration admitting that "Woops" we made a mistake--never should have invaded...so sorry...we messed up. Our bad.

[June 24, 2008--Addition: For those of you wanting more information on Maya Soetoro-Ng, you can see this post from March 15, 2008, which includes a video that Soetoro-Ng made for her brother's campaign and a New York Times article about their mother Stanly-Ann Dunham]