In Sunday’s Washington Post, hip hop artist and poet Bomani Armah wrote a satirical op-ed piece about Barack Obama’s blackness. “It’s official,” he jokes, “Barack Obama is black enough.” Now, he suggested, it’s time for him to start showing how white he is.

It does not need to be said that it is an interesting time for race in the United States. With a political campaign encouraging everyone to talk extensively about blackness in America, magazine and fashion folks demanding proportional multi-cultural representation in the industry and on the runways, and a blog that satires whiteness getting millions of hits, Spike Lee, Al Sharpton, and Dead Prez are getting a bit of a break.

Read Armah’s tongue-in-cheek Washington Post piece here and hear him interviewed on NPR’s Talk of the Nation here.