Kalagenesis new termonology"Afripino"

Kalagenesis has found a new term to celebrate the growing number of persons who are of African-American and Filipino heritage.The term Afripino is a combination of Afri-from African and Pino -from filipino.
The plural is Afripinos
The feminine is Afripina
The plural feminine is Afripinas

Kalagenesis Poll.Are you"hood"or are you"community"

Copy of Kalagenesis Poll





Kalagenesis has a new question to ask the Black community due to the fact that every time there is a large gathering of our people trouble,violence,and chaos breaks out.It is to the point now we have savages among us(The enemy within)destroying ever place we call home.Communities with all the things every other community has but not the violence and ignorance.Why are some involved with the youth while some are mis leading the youth into a life of crime,disorder,unruly behavior and disrespect for authority.In order for you to take the poll you have to first know what the difference between being hood and being community.Here are some points
Hood:
1)You don't know who your elected officials are.
2)The only time you walk into the library is to use the bathroom
3)We you see a 16 year old girl you don't look at her beauty with respect that she is your sister,but your thinking only two more years till she is legal.
4)You write on the walls, pants sagging,cursing in front of elders,showing no consideration to anyone around
5)You can't keep a job
6)Selling drugs to you own people,getting young shorties to run errands for you.
7)Wearing a white t even to church
8)In and out of jail is a badge of honor.
9)Shooting guns and making you neighborhood a hell on Earth
10)Living in a rich White neighborhood,but you are always so hood,even though if you go to that block you will get stuck up.
Community:
1)You know who your elected officials are in you area
2)Although your working three jobs you read the paper,go to the library,and your up to date on the goings on in your community.
3)You participate in activities,police,ambulance,youth coach ect
4)You have plans to complete college to come and build in your community for the better of all
5)Yes you are against crime and will cooperate with authorities to make you community safer.
6)You know as a minority you are your brothers keeper,so it is your responsibility to help you brother or any man in real need.
7)You respect young girls as little sisters,and try to be a role model to younger kids
8)A family cookout with all relatives sitting down in love and peace tells you that money although it is important it cant replace these good times,
9)You defend your people against racist,and hate the criminals who are destroying Black America
10)You know about Africa and proud to be an African American,you can name at least 5 African countries.
These are some of the points about why our people are going down the tubes.There are some who are always complaining about what they don't have.But in the same ghettos people own cars,televisions,cable,video games, and they buy their baby boys 200 dollar Jordans.That is hood when your rims cost more that your car.You don't have a bank account only use check cashing.You think knocking off a 7/11 is ok because hey my kids got to eat.Niggers love hood,Africans or the Black man loves his community.
Family=Community=Nation.We all should strive to build the Kala Nation under God

Xenophobia in South Africa.Are we having buyers remorse?

Cyril Ramaphosa>
In the years since the Soweto uprisings in South Africa we as African American people bonded with our brothers and sisters over there against the White minority aparthied government.Through our solidarity we convinced colleges to divest in South African industry,trade,securities,mining,and more importantly military weapons.Overriding President Reagan's veto sanctions against the South African government went into effect.Although we never asked for anything in return our brotherhood with that particular African people was affirmed.In 1990 Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and the whole world watched with amazement and hope for a better South Africa.Four years later he was elected as the country's first Black president,amid Black on Black violence that tore KwaZulu/Natal apart.Since the beginning Black people from all over the world was coming to South Africa to help build a new democracy,based on freedom,tolerance,and democracy.The number of African American's living in South Africa is striking and helped American businesses gain a foothold over there.From the start many questioned the safety of being in a developing country with so much recent violence,and although there was love for us because of what we were able to do,now there was growing resentment.The presence of Black American's who were taking top executive positions because big South African companies preferred us over them added to this resentment.Now recently South Africa is being hit with a wave of murderous anti foreign violence in which African Americans living there may not be immune to.Recently several high profile acts of violence against Black entertainers should take notice.the following is an article on the recent wave of xenophobia gripping the beloved country.-Kalagenesis



South Africa violence spreads

Attacks mostly target impoverished migrants from neighbouring African countries [AFP]
Violence against foreigners in Johannesburg, the South African capital, has reportedly spread to the east coast city of Durban.

Phindile Radebe, provincial police spokeswoman, said a crowd of almost 200 people carrying bottles and wooden clubs had gathered on a street in Durban's impoverished suburb of Umbilo and began carrying out attacks.

Radebe said on Wednesday: "A mob of plus/minus 200 were gathering on the streets carrying bottles and knobkerries [wooden clubs] busy attacking people on the streets."

"They attacked one of the taverns there believed to be owned by Nigerians."

Radebe also said that the situation was being monitored by police, who were still investigating the motive behind the attack.

The Mercury newspaper quoted John Lazarus, a Durban police spokesperson, as saying that anti-immigrants groups had ordered the foreigners to "leave KwaZulu Natal", the country's most populous province.

Xenophobic violence broke out in Johannesburg, about 600km, north of Durban, 10 days ago and has claimed 24 lives, displaced 13,000 people and seen scores injured by rampaging mobs bearing axes, machetes and razing shacks to the ground.

'Quiet night'

Locals accuse foreigners, millions of whom migrate to South Africa in search of jobs and a better life, of committing crime and depriving them of employment opportunities.

Govindsamy Mariemuthoo, Johannesburg police spokesman, said the situation had been calm overnight, with only a few incidents to the east of the city that police quickly brought under control.



He said: "It has been quiet in the area overnight but there were a few incidents. For example, in the East Rand in Gugulethu and Ramaphosa informal settlements one shack each was set alight there."



"In Tembisa seven people were arrested for public violence and in Rabie Ridge three people were shot and taken to hospital. In Kya Sands police dispersed a crowd of about 100 people."

Source: Agencies

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Kalagensis
In light of this recent wave of violence a serious question needs to be asked about why are the Blacks attacking other Blacks on this level but never attacked the Whites the same way?Is it because in spite of a so called Black government the Whites are still protected by their skin which ties them to the racist power structure of the world.These attacks I believe are the pent up rage against both the Whites in South Africa and the ANC which many are now using to get rich.So much for the struggle!Remember a man named Cyril Ramaphosa?He was one of the ANC'S chief negotiators when Mandela was locked up.What is he doing now?Well it seems he has quit politics and joined the business community using his contacts in the government.He is now a billionaire with holdings in everything.The masses of poor Black South Africans are seething with anger and the attacks this week on Zimbabweans,Mozambiquens,Somalis ,Nigerians are just warning signs on whats to come.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD TRIBAL ALLIANCE.: MOTHER AFRICA; THE ETERNAL DESTRUCTION OF YOUR LANDS IS AT HAND.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD TRIBAL ALLIANCE.: MOTHER AFRICA; THE ETERNAL DESTRUCTION OF YOUR LANDS IS AT HAND.

There's a Moron in the White House.Keith Obermann rips George W.Bush a new one.

Keith Obermann rips Bush a new one in the spirit of FR Meril.This is the most bold and truthful statement about this the moron in the White house I've ever seen.This commentary is a call to arms that we are in the last days.We are about to enter an era of tyranny and chaos.Bush is exposed for the fool and liar he is.

The Enemy Within.Pt 1 Marcus Tillius Cicero The Roman Orator

The Kalagenesis has brought the Black world some explosive points to the quest for liberation.The first was the Kala Nation,second was 'Sacred Cows',the last was 'Arrested Development'Each of the three core points tell why the Black community is in a state of peril.In the Bible there are all of the laws and guides for prosperity longevity and living a holy or Godly existences on this Earth.Without following God's laws a people is cursed to failure and a life of Damnation.There are now attempts by the very wicked to trivialize the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ,in the name of Secular progressiveness.This means there are no morals or man is his own moral compass.Morals and values define a people and it is the difference between those families who live on for the next generations and those who disappear because of sin,and wickedness.We are all born in sin,but we are also forgiven for ours,if we repent and ask in his sons name.Every people have the obligation to free themselves from tyranny,oppression,poverty,want,ignorance.It is those vices that keep a people poor and down and not moving forward.How does one group of people seem to rise out of nothing and achieve greatness?It is unity,morals,and values.God puts that in even the most heathen among men.There is something that is in every man to do right and serve God.Being a good father,is serving God,Being a good student,teacher,son,daughter,law abiding citizen is serving God.When you are not serving god you are out of his graces.When you are out of his graces then you will be damned.The Black community if facing damnation because we have chosen to follow the very wicked,evil,and sinful among us.When I say among us I say we cannot see the blessing God has for us, what ever that might be because we are smitten with the false material prosperity that the Entertainer show us.Case in point RnB singer R Kelly who going on trial for child pornography soon and to show how low many in our community have fallen there are people who are lining up to support this sick man.Now he urinated on a little girl someones daughter.Where are the real Black men who should be running this sick bastard out of town?To many people who hate their own people and could care less about the most vulnerable among us.A little girl!What the hell is wrong with my people?Are we that damned?Who is responsible for the moral decline in Black America?Does this play into the hands of people who only want to see us as coons,sambos,slaves?As long as the main decision making concerning culture,reward and punishment,and status are not in the hands of real good Black men and women the whole socio economic system of the African people of America is doomed.We all know there will be criminals,thugs,gangsters,murderers ect among us,thats a given,but they should never rule over a people.When this happens a state of anarchy takes over and the people lose faith in the structure that governs them.In the broader America this problem happened but the average American kid believes in the golden rule or recognizes that things will work out if you live the straight and narrow.In other words for every White criminal who makes some money it is nothing compared to the millions who make millions time more the right way.We in the African American community don't have people on a large scale with millions of dollars who have kinship or have an allegiance to the Black community.These people are out for themselves and don't care about the negativity they bring to the Black community.Its all about the money.These people don't want a revolution,they don't even want Obama because they cant profit off him.Now it is one thing to make money but to work against the interest of your own people?Why do we have so many traitors among us?With out the self hating traitors among us we could build a culture,economic system,political power as shown by the 95% support for Barack Obama which is revolutionary.
The false argument from Micheal Savage about Cicero,and what he meant by the enemy within:One point is that Savage obviously did not read Cicero carefully enough.In Cicero's statements the enemy within were not left wing malcontents of the time nor were they the disaffected in his age.He was clearly taking about the ruling elite who as he put it were so drunk with power and self conceit that they were driving the state into oblivion.These people set people up murdered because their power went unchecked.He also said they plotted wars spending the treasure to divert attention away from the crisis in the streets.Here is when he said about them speaking in familiar tone.He was saying these traitors while they professed love for Rome they really were out for themselves and hid behind a false guise of patriotism.This is Savages problem he went after the wrong enemy within instead he choose to target caged sheep for a slaughter.The left wing people as he hates because they have realistic view of America not a false fanatic flag worshiping one as he does are not the enemy within.It is the people who are driving this country to suicidal war on terror while we still are depending on oil from those same people we as Americans claim we are at war with.
Marcus Tillius Cicero was born January 3 106 B.C. from the tribesmen of the Volscian mountains the city of Arpinium.They fought Rome in the early years 200 years before becoming citizens without suffrage.This dual identity on the part of the Arpinates explains why many became the strongest believers in the Roman republic and its courts.Assimilation means freedom from persecution.But the rulers by the time Cicero was born became to covet their Roman citizenship as something sacred,not as something that could eventually be attained by almost anyone who is exceptional.This went against the wise thinking of Rome's builders who enfranchised many to expand the Empire and use the rule of law to ensure peace.Gradually the Arpinates assimilated in Roman society and culture around 200 b.c.Shortly after the death of Hannibal and Scipio AfricanusThe Arpinate leader helped Rome defeat Jurgutha.Cicero was born during troubled times,the court system was corrupted to the point that people were tried for political reasons and the rich escaped justice by buying favors.The streets were unsafe because many people lost hope of becoming citizens,and they turned to crime,thievery robbery ect.People felt unsafe and the rights the Rome enjoyed were eroding.The wicked and corrupted leaders who plotted wars for plunder and gain were never brought to justice.All the while the people seethed with anger.Now any orator at the time who spoke out in the name of justice was called a hater,trouble maker,or worse.This was what Cicero was referring to,when the called those the 'enemy within'.Being an outsider almost in Rome he was always careful to following the golden rules because he knew his enemies would remind people of his Arpinium origins.These men like John Quincy Adams once wrote of the men tied to the plantation slavery system"will go to any lengths to preserve their ill gotten gains even if means plundering a country into civil war".
Cicero wrote about these traitors when he said: "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear.


--Marcus Tullius Cicero
Roman orator, statesman 42 B.C
This is the problem that parallels the African American community from the very day the first slaves were brought to this country.We have self serving,self hating race traitors who will send us back into slavery as surly as I am sitting here.The enemies of Black people select who shall rule over us and they are the buffer between them and us.In this blog series I will pull no punches, in exposing the phony entertainers,leaders,spokes mouths,elected officials in Black America and they will be silenced once and for all.
Kalagenesis

The Writing is on the Wall.The Emerging Black Blogger Power

Since the growth of the blogger sphere the mainstream media have not been able to shape opinions the way they could years ago.For many years the issues that decided elections were determined by the board room of the New York Times.The science of image making controls the way people think,feel,touch,see,believe in.If you see an image that stays with you forever.It effects what you desire,value,and hate.For years the mainstream media has controlled the agenda of Black people by creating false images like skin tone,education level,income level,or class.The recent development of Barack Obama to political power showcased the demise of the traditional power structure's strangle hold on the Black electorate.The mainstream media clearly were trying to deliver an easy victory for Hilary Clinton.The the media tried to discredit Obama's blackness by harping on his background both as a mixed raced man,and as an ivy league educated man.
Along comes the Black bloggers to set the record straight.For the longest time many in our community were tired of the ignorant,shuffle along people who were given a mic and ask to speak for the entire community.With the bloggers and the banding together of Black bloggers,millions of voices are now traveling through cyberspace.The Black Bloggers are the writing on the wall.It is the 800 pound gorilla in the room,something that cannot be ignored.The mainstream media cleverly started mentioning the ignorant bottom of Black America saying they don't care about Obama.Correct, these people won't prosper whoever wins in November.So why bother asking them?Image making.To paint a picture that Blacks are hopeless so why believe in a mixed raced ivy league Black man from Hawaii?Since the Black bloggers came out supporting Obama,through you tube,social networks,myspace the image making machine of the dominate media seemed obsolete.The Clintons,Black leaders,entertainers,host,rappers are all feeling the heat these blogs can bring.Asked Tavis Smiley,or that coon Bob Johnson.Speaking of Bob Johnson,have you ever heard anything negative about him in the mainstream media?No.Do you think this is an accident?No it is not.But look at how he is viewed on the internet.Image making,this matrix is real the internet really is the writing on the wall.
The following Washington post article on the so called divide among Blacks shows just what the Kalagenesis is reporting:

Obama's Bid Turns Focus
On Class Split Among Blacks
By JONATHAN KAUFMAN
January 22, 2008

ELGIN, S.C. -- Briana Parker, a 17-year-old African-American, drives her Honda every Wednesday from her suburban home here to the local Barack Obama headquarters to work the phone banks. Already accepted at six colleges, the high-school senior finds Mr. Obama an inspiration. "He reminds me that I can go and do things that others said I couldn't do," says Ms. Parker, who plans to double major at college and become a physical therapist.
[Barack Obama]

Seventeen miles and a world away, Malcolm Davis, 25, waits outside his parole office in Columbia, S.C. Like 13% of all black men -- 1.4 million in total -- he can't vote because he lives in a state that disenfranchises people convicted of certain felonies. He scoffs at Mr. Obama's message of hope and change. "He didn't grow up the way I grew up -- Mom smoking crack, Daddy smoking crack. It doesn't matter what I think. Just because a black man is running for president doesn't mean it's going to change things."

Even as Mr. Obama is promising to bring America together, his candidacy is casting new light on the mounting class divide in the black community -- and the debate among blacks about how to get ahead. The expanding black middle class -- accounting for about 40% of the black population -- see in Mr. Obama a validation of the choices they have made: attending largely white colleges, working in predominantly white companies and government offices, climbing up the ladder of American success.

For African-Americans living in the inner city -- where most children are being raised by single mothers, male unemployment in some cities tops 50% and 40% of young black men are either in jail, awaiting trial or on probation -- the view of Mr. Obama is much more skeptical. Black teenagers mock Mr. Obama as a "Halfrican" and a "50-percenter" for his biracial background; his mother is white, his Kenyan-born father was black. A recent special on Mr. Obama on Black Entertainment Television, the most popular station among inner-city blacks, was titled, "Obama: What's in It for Us?"

Wide Disparity of Support

A poll this fall by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black think tank, shows the wide disparity of support for Mr. Obama among blacks. While 75% of blacks who went to college had a favorable or very favorable view of the candidate -- rising to 88% among blacks who went to graduate or professional school -- support dipped to 62% among those with just a high-school degree and to 42% among blacks who haven't finished high school. A similar pattern shows up as income levels fall among blacks. And while 83% of blacks employed full time had a favorable view of Mr. Obama, just 55% of unemployed blacks did.
[obamaclass]
Kurt Wilberding
THE RISE OF THE BLACK MIDDLE CLASS

1954: In the Brown v. Board of Education decision, U.S. Supreme Court declares segregation in public schools illegal.
[Rosa Parks - 1969]
1955: Rosa Parks (right) is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on the bus. The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins. A pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr., leads the boycott and becomes a national hero.
1956: Desegregation of the Montgomery, Ala., bus system.
1960: Only 20% of the U.S. black population finishes high school, compared with 43% of whites. Only 3% of blacks graduate from college. About 10% of blacks are considered middle class.
1961: President John F. Kennedy issues an executive order mandating federally-funded projects take "affirmative action" to ensure that hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias.
1961: Barack Obama born.
1964: Passage of Civil Rights Act.
[King - 1968]
1964: Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (right) is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1965-1968: Passage of Voting Rights Act, a series of bills to end discrimination in jobs, education and housing.
1968: The Rev. King is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.
1970: About 20% of blacks are considered middle class. The increase is fueled by black women leaving jobs as domestics for sales, clerical and service positions, and by men moving into professional, sales and technical jobs, and running their own businesses.
1980: Over 50% of blacks graduate from high school; about 8% graduate college.
1983: Obama graduates from Columbia University
[Jesse Jackson - 1984]
1984: Jesse Jackson (right) runs for the Democratic nomination. He tries again in 1988.
1984-1992: Bill Cosby produces and stars in "The Cosby Show," featuring an upper-middle class African-American family.
1991: Obama graduates from Harvard Law School. Was elected first black president of Harvard Law Review.
1996: Obama is elected to Illinois State Senate. He is reelected in 2000.
2000: Approximately 86% of blacks graduate from high school and 13% graduate from college. About 40% of blacks are considered middle class, defined as having a household income between $40,000 and $100,000 a year.
2004: Obama is elected to the U.S. Senate.
2007: Obama announces he'll run for the U.S. presidency.
Source: WSJ research

The black vote is key to Mr. Obama in South Carolina where he needs a victory this Saturday following defeat in New Hampshire and a mixed result in Nevada where he lost the caucus vote by 51% to 45% but won one more delegate than New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. His support among blacks across the country is swelling as he proves himself a formidable challenger to Mrs. Clinton, who initially rallied black support because of her and her husband's support of black issues. Despite losing in Nevada, Mr. Obama won about 83% of the black vote, according to exit polls. A CNN poll released last week showed Mr. Obama with almost 60% support among black voters across the U.S., compared with 31% for Mrs. Clinton. Here in South Carolina, several polls have shown Mr. Obama leading Mrs. Clinton by about 8% overall with wide leads among black voters.

Many poor blacks don't vote, so their skepticism likely won't hurt Mr. Obama's candidacy. But Mr. Obama's challenge goes beyond politics: Can he unite his own community -- and, if elected president, inspire and uplift African-Americans of all classes?

Many of the features that whites find most appealing about Mr. Obama -- his mixed-race background, cosmopolitan upbringing, the ease with which he moves among whites -- stir unease among some blacks. The debate among blacks about Mr. Obama has become unusually intimate, including discussions about the color of his wife's skin.

"People say, 'How can this guy, black as he may be, relate to me?'" says Eric Holder, former deputy attorney general who is black and an Obama adviser. "But as people hear his story and the choices he has made throughout his life, they will understand that he not only looks like them but that there is a natural connection."

Mr. Obama's candidacy comes amid an intensifying argument in the black community about what it means to be black in America and how blacks succeed. A survey this past fall by Pew Research found that 60% of blacks say the values of poor and middle-class blacks have grown more dissimilar over the past decade -- with "values" defined as "things that people view as important or their general way of thinking." Almost 40% of blacks say that the values of poor and middle-class blacks have diverged so much that blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race. Middle class is commonly defined as households making between $40,000 and $100,000 a year.

Bill Cosby, now ranked by blacks as one of the people they admire most, according to the Pew Research survey, has been traveling across the country, visiting black churches and organizations, lacerating poor black parents: "I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit [prison garb]. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18, and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol? And where is his father?"

"You know how whites used to clutch their purses in the elevator whenever a black teenager stepped in," says Natalie Brown, who works with poor blacks here through the local Urban League. "Now blacks do it, too."

Mr. Obama rarely discusses race on the campaign trail though he occasionally talks about seeing teenagers in Chicago hanging out on street corners who "look like me." His policy prescriptions for the inner city are similar to those of former Sen. John Edwards and Mrs. Clinton, including more money for jobs and education and reforming the criminal-justice system to eliminate the discrepancy in sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine, used more by blacks, and powdered cocaine, used more by whites.

But Mr. Obama is likely to address inner-city issues more directly as the primaries now move to South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states. Blacks make up 15% or more of the Democratic primary vote in many of those states, including Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, Virginia, New York and Missouri.

"Imagine having a president who was raised like I was by a single mom on food stamps," Mr. Obama declared during a recent rally before blacks in South Carolina. "Imagine having a president who can go into black neighborhoods and give young men and women someone to look up to."

'We Are Breaking Apart'

Class has divided American blacks ever since slave owners divided blacks into field slaves and more favored house slaves and interracial relationships left some blacks with lighter skin. Lloyd Kinnitt, a retired cook who grew up in Georgia and now lives in Boston, recalls his mother looking askance at some black neighbors and telling him: "They may be my color but they're not my kind."

Such class distinctions are true among white Americans and ethnic groups as well; whites in South Carolina talk about rednecks and "trailer trash." But the debate over class in the black community has been particularly harsh in recent decades because while many, like Mr. Obama, have seen incomes and opportunities grow, others, even in the same families, have slipped further and further behind.

Mr. Obama himself wrote about this dilemma in his autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," published before he entered politics. Describing a confrontation with some black teenagers in a car in a poor part of Chicago where he was working as a community organizer, Mr. Obama described the fear and alienation he felt: "As much as I might tell myself otherwise, we are breaking apart these boys and me, into different tribes, speaking a different tongue, living by a different code."
[photo]
Herbert Tolliver cuts the hair of Dr. Clarence Dollison, in Columbia, S.C. The Obama campaign is targeting barbershops, where the different classes of the black community often cross paths.

Some poor blacks worry that whites will look at Mr. Obama's success and conclude that the "system" works -- that if Mr. Obama can succeed the government doesn't need to provide further programs for poor blacks in the inner cities.

"When he says, there is no white America, there is no black America -- well, there is," says Ronald Peder, a black activist and writer in Boston. "If he really believes in all this magic about change in America -- well, I don't feel anything is going to change in black America."

"I don't see anyone campaigning to people in the inner city" says Clifton Tobias, a warehouse worker at United Parcel Service here in Columbia. "Their campaigns are directed to whites and the suburbs, not people who are poor and black."

It's not just politicians who are leaving poor blacks behind, many blacks say, but the middle class as well. "It's a divide," says Herbert Tolliver, who runs a Columbia barbershop that draws in poor young black men as well as the middle class. "Oftentimes we don't want to admit it but we don't reach back and pull those up behind us like we should."

One of the things that many poor and middle-class blacks say they like best about Mr. Obama is that his wife, Michelle, who attended Princeton and Harvard Law School, is dark-skinned. Color has long been a sensitive subject in the black community, with men and women of lighter skin seen as having higher status.

Rev. Eugene Rivers, who works in Boston's poor black neighborhoods, says he was in his local barbershop last week "and there was a magazine with photos of Obama and his family. Someone held up the picture of him hugging his wife and the guys all started saying, 'She's a dark sister.'"

"Many of our male celebrities, sports figures, they marry white women or light-skinned wives," says Darnell Cooper, a laborer in Columbia, S.C. "We all see that on television. But you turn on the TV and you see Michelle Obama and she looks black. I can identify with her." He laughs. "I can tell you this: He would have a lot less votes if his wife were light-skinned or white."

Charles Ogletree, a Harvard Law School professor who taught both Barack and Michelle Obama in law school, says, "I always tell Barack, 'You married up.' Michelle went to the best schools but she never lost sight that she is in a minority -- a black woman in America. That resonates with people and makes them see Obama in a very different light."

If Mr. Obama is greeted with some skepticism in poor black communities, the mood among the middle class is fervent, especially in families that identify with Mr. Obama's struggles and choices.
[chart]

"He is a living example of how doing the right thing and getting an education and striving is possible without your having to give up your identity," says Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a prominent black psychiatrist in Boston.

"When I was 5 years old, I said I was going to be president," says David Thomas, a black dean at Harvard Business School who grew up in the 1960s. "By the time I was 7, I said I would be the first black president because I knew what color meant. By the time I was 9, I said I'll be a lawyer because I knew that black people don't become president."

Last month, at Christmas with relatives in Kansas City, Mo., Mr. Thomas watched as two young cousins, 4 and 6, argued with each other about who would become president first. "I don't think by the time they turn 9 they will have changed their minds," he says.

Volunteering for Mr. Obama

Anita Parker, Briana Parker's mother, says she initially backed Hillary Clinton. She became more interested in Mr. Obama when her daughter began volunteering for him. Soon she was volunteering as well, and bringing along her 13-year-old son, Bryce.

Ms. Parker, a school administrator, says she likes the way Mr. Obama has reached out to whites as well as blacks. "Obama is not just campaigning with one group in mind, he is truly interested in helping everybody," she says. Two years ago, Ms. Parker moved her family from Beaufort, S.C., to Elgin, a suburb northeast of Columbia, in part to raise her children in a mixed-race community; the school her children now attend is about 60% black. The family rents a home in a well-to-do subdivision where houses sell for between $100,000 and $300,000.

Back in Beaufort, where Ms. Parker lived in a less affluent and predominately black community, she says she worked hard to make sure her children spoke standard English rather than the rural dialect or street slang that many of their classmates used. Her son, Bryce, was in first grade when she recalls his teacher asking her: "Where is he from? He doesn't talk like us."

The children say there is less criticism from other blacks now because many of the black and other students at their schools share the same goals. Briana has recruited two of her African-American classmates, also college-bound seniors, to volunteer for Mr. Obama. One plans to be a physical therapist like her; the other a heart surgeon.

"Even if he doesn't win, he shows us that we can do just as much or even more," says Briana. "We can get to the level we are trying to get to -- the Bill Gates level, the Oprah level."

"Obama has the same kind of hope for his children and focus and determination that I do," says her mother. "The fact that he has gotten this far means maybe the minds of Americans have opened more than I thought."

Write to Jonathan Kaufman at jonathan.kaufman@wsj.com
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