strange situation at the barak obama talk page recently i added a single reliably sourced word african to the list of barak obama's mother's ethnic origins near the beginning of the barak obama article my basic point is that if the article mentions obama's mother's single scottish ancestor who was born years ago as well as obama's irish and swiss ancestry then there shouldn't be a problem with an equally brief mention of her african ancestry my one word addition to the article was first modified and then deleted so i opened a talk page here the discussion has taken a disturbing turn and seems to have hit a nerve of racial discomfort among some wikipedia editors in particular the suggestion to delete the entire list of ethnic origins as a way to avoid adding the word african strikes me as a potential public relations black eye for wikipedia which is why i am making this post here