the big fat idiot speaks

the stupidest thing about this obama is really an arab thing is that the people making the claim don't seem to know what an "arab" is. you'd think that the last few years of heavy news coverage of the arab world would give these folks some inkling of what that word means.

they also seem to think that "black"/"african american" and "arab" are mutually exclusive categories. "arab" is an ethnic group, not a race. in fact, the arab ethnic group includes people with a wide range of skin color, ranging from what we would consider "white" to "black" to everything in between. i've seen arabs in syria with skin as pale as mine, i've seen some with red hair and freckles. and i've seen arabs in egypt with skin as dark as i saw in kenya.

of course, the fact that some arabs are black, doesn't mean that obama is an arab. it's rather well documented that his father was a luo, which is a distinct ethnic group from the arab. (luos are nilotic, which is part of the nilo-saharan language family, whereas arabs are semitic which is part of the afro-asiatic language family) not that i expect the morons who listen to rush will be able to make such distinctions. but, if it helps, there is a handy map at alas, a blog. [never mind, as my bro points out in the comments, mr. fecke has the arrow for kenya pointing at tanzania. kenya is the one north of that (east of the country with the "2")]