Third Culture Kids love Obama!

I stayed up on November 4th counting electoral votes as I enjoyed basking in the moment of our new President-Elect Barack Obama’s win. Truly, I am happy. I feel a kinship with him on many levels. The feeling that you can relate to someone so visible and iconic is exhilarating.

My mother was a white American. Her mother was Irish American and her father was Jewish originally from Poland. She met my Nigerian father while he was at Columbia University in New York and she ended up moving to Nigeria where she lived for 38 years. Within myself, I feel great resonance for the fact that we both have white American mothers and African fathers that came to this country to study and went to Ivy League institutions and dared to have public relationships with white women at a time when it certainly was not the politically correct thing to do.

I moved to the US from Nigeria when I was sixteen. I relate with many people of many different races and nationalities. I have relationships in many corners of the world and I am looking to establishing even more. One of the things I have written about is the fact that I am a Third Culture Kid. Being multiracial and living in different cultures growing up as a child makes me a Third Culture Kid.

I find the conversation about Obama and race to be very interesting because I do not think he sees himself as others see him. In my opinion, a black man did not win the election. He is multi-racial! Why are we trying to define who he is? He gets to define who he is. I have never really heard him discuss his personal definition of his race extensively. I think it would upset other people if they realized that he may not see his race through the same lens as they do. He may actually consider himself half white and half African – a new spin on the term “African-American.”

As a coach, it is obvious to me that we have underestimated “resonance” in this electoral race. Resonance elected Obama – not race. He resonates with many white Americans, because culturally, he has a significant white component to his identity. Some people may not want to hear that but it is true. And that does not mean he negates his black culture.

He resonates with young people. He relates to African Americans. He resonates with thinking people. As he kisses his wife and kids while on camera, he resonates with family people. Most of all, he resonates with people who are sick and tired of living in a box. He resonates with people who want to live outside the box! Because he is a Third Culture Kid (TCK) he has this innate ability to resonate with so many people on so many levels. Many Americans see a piece of themselves alive in him.

One of the most common traits of third culture kids is that they develop very strong self leadership traits as they learn at a very early age, how to fit in with people that are not like them.

Indeed, Obama is a third culture kids.