Kenyan tribalism explains why Barack is so black

Democracy is working its magic in Kenya at the moment:

Kenya Torn by Tribal Rage: In a flash, ethnically integrated neighbors turn on one another ... -- Washington Post

Kenya Topples Into Post-Election Chaos -- NY Times

So, it's worth recounting the views of Barack Obama's Kenyan relatives, who belong to the Luo tribe, on the tribal situation in Kenya. The Presidential candidate writes in Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (p. 348):

Anyway, the divisions in Kenya didn't stop there [between Africans and Indian merchants]; there were always finer lines to draw. Between the country's forty black tribes, for example. They, too, were a fact of life. You didn't notice the tribalism so much among [half-sister] Auma's friends, younger university-educated Kenyans who had been schooled in the idea of nation and race; tribe was an issue with them only when they were considering a mate, or when they got older and saw it help or hinder careers. But they were the exceptions. Most Kenyans still worked with older maps of identity, more ancient loyalties. Even Jane or Zeituni could say things that surprised me. "The Luo are intelligent but lazy," they would say. Or "The Kikuyu are money-grubbing but industrious." Or "The Kalenjins -- well, you can see what's happened to the country since they took over."

Hearing my aunts traffic in such stereotypes, I would try to explain to them the error of their ways. [At this point, Obama has spent a little less than two weeks in his life in Africa.] "It's thinking like that that holds us back," I would say. "We're all part of one tribe. The black tribe. The human tribe. Look what tribalism has done to places like Nigeria or Liberia."

And Jane would say, "Ah, those West Africans are all crazy anyway. You know they used to be cannibals, don't you?"

And Zeituni would say, "You sound just like your father, Barry, he also had such ideas about people."

Meaning he , too, was naive; he, too, liked to argue with history. Look what happened to him ...

The reason Obama is just about as dark in skin tone as the average African-American even though he is nearly three times as white genetically is because the Luo are darker than most other Africans. Obama describes the crowd at a Nairobi nightclub (p. 364) as comprised of:

"... tall, ink-black Luos and short, brown Kikuyus, Kamba and Meru and Kalenjin..."

Obama's Luo tribe are one of the tall, thin, very dark "elongated Nilotic" groups who originated in the Southern Sudan. They are rather like their relatives, the famously tall Dinka and Nuer, only not quite as much. In contrast, most Africans today (and almost all African-Americans) are primarily descended from the "Bantu expansion" that originated in the Nigeria-Cameroon area of West Africa.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer