When will the US elect a black President descended from slaves? Or a woman who gave birth?

[Blue3]

When will the US elect a black President descended from American slaves? Or a woman who has given birth?

Obama was half-white, and his father was a Kenyan immigrant, not descended from American slaves.
Harris is half-black and half Indian, and her father was from Jamaica, not descended from American slaves.
Harris hasn't given birth.

I'm not saying this makes their elections to President/VP any less. But that there still hasn't been a black President/VP who was born into black American culture that's fully internalized that their direct ancestors were enslaved for generations. There also hasn't been a President/VP who experienced childbirth and raising an infant 24/7. Those are experiences I would eventually like someone in the White House to have personal, direct experience with, as I think they would be a very different worldview from everyone else elected President/VP, and not a minor change in experience and worldview.

So, prediction time, when will each of these happen? And if in the near-future, who?

[brucejoel99]

Well, we did technically vote for a woman who gave birth on Nov. 8th, 2016. The problem, of course, was that that wasn't sufficient to elect her.

[SingingAnalyst]

Nikki Haley and Tim Scott are within the realm of possibility in the next 10 years. I'm sure there are others.

[Intell]

WHO THE FYCK CARES

[Kuumo]

Is it just me, or is there something really weird about being fixated on when a woman who gave birth will be elected President? I had to look up the Presidents who were never biological fathers because the only one I remembered off the top of my head was James Buchanan, although I probably should have remembered that Washington and Jackson never had children either.

[SingingAnalyst]

Is it just me, or is there something really weird about being fixated on when a woman who gave birth will be elected President? I had to look up the Presidents who were never biological fathers because the only one I remembered off the top of my head was James Buchanan, although I probably should have remembered that Washington and Jackson never had children either.

It may or may not be, perhaps depending on the age of the person. In the early 1970s, when the question "Would you vote for a woman?" or "Would you vote for a Black?" was starting to get clear majority "Yes" responses, the assumption was probably that a woman President would have had a child, since the norm of that time was for women to marry in their early 20s (perhaps 22, if they graduated form college) and have children not long thereafter. People really hadn't thought through the work-life balance issue for women, at least as it applies to children and career.

The case for assuming that the first Black President would be descended from slaves (as were Jesse Jackson and Michelle Obama, for instance) is much more clear-cut: there were few Black African immigrants in the US, and fewer mixed couples or mixed children for that matter, in the early 1970s. It would have been perfectly reasonable, especially given Shirley Chisholm's recent if largely symbolic run, to assume that the first Black President would be descended from slaves, just as it is still reasonable to think that the next Black President will have been.

And are they "fixated" on it? I am not fixated on the fact that Biden won without FL, MO, OH, or TX while all prior Democratic winners carried at least two of those four states; I just find it an interesting statistic. Consider, too, the fact that it appears rather likely that the first female President will be a person of color, even though the majority of US women 35 or older are white. It would not (necessarily) be racist to wonder, in that scenario, when the first white woman would become President.

[Blue3]

Well, we did technically vote for a woman who gave birth on Nov. 8th, 2016. The problem, of course, was that that wasn't sufficient to elect her.

True

WHO THE FYCK CARES

It's not the most important thing, but as I said in my post, I can imagine how some people would, people who'd like someone with their experience to be president. And it would just be interesting to talk about.

Is it just me, or is there something really weird about being fixated on when a woman who gave birth will be elected President? I had to look up the Presidents who were never biological fathers because the only one I remembered off the top of my head was James Buchanan, although I probably should have remembered that Washington and Jackson never had children either.

There's no fixation. I've hardly heard anyone even talk about it. I remembered reading years ago, before 2008, when people were arguing "electing the first female President will lead to more peace because she'd have that maternal instinct that comes from childbirth." Obviously that argument was crap, just the the "democratic peace" theory. I hadn't heard anyone bring up that Kamala Harris hasn't been a biological mother since she became VP nominee, and wanted to bring it up and discuss it. It's also just interesting statistically.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Well, we did technically vote for a woman who gave birth on Nov. 8th, 2016.

Wow! Chelsea looks old for her age.

[Kuumo]

Is it just me, or is there something really weird about being fixated on when a woman who gave birth will be elected President? I had to look up the Presidents who were never biological fathers because the only one I remembered off the top of my head was James Buchanan, although I probably should have remembered that Washington and Jackson never had children either.

There's no fixation. I've hardly heard anyone even talk about it. I remembered reading years ago, before 2008, when people were arguing "electing the first female President will lead to more peace because she'd have that maternal instinct that comes from childbirth." Obviously that argument was crap, just the the "democratic peace" theory. I hadn't heard anyone bring up that Kamala Harris hasn't been a biological mother since she became VP nominee, and wanted to bring it up and discuss it. It's also just interesting statistically.

I see now. It’s an interesting observation that I didn’t really notice. It’s probably mostly statistical noise since very few people have been elected President or Vice President and the number of women who have even been nominated for these positions is even shorter. Same goes for the fact that both of the African Americans elected President or Vice President are both descended from recent immigrants and not American slaves.

[pbrower2a]

By the one-drop rule, Barack Obama's mother (1/16 sub-Saharan African) was black, which has been proved through DNA. At that level, African ancestry is likely to be unidentifiable from appearance.