Ok, so it’s been about a week. Election time has come and gone and here I am. I’m going to start by saying this. I did NOT want to write today! Not at all, things are NOT going smoothly have not been for sometime. I really would like to use the time I’m spending writing to sort out some personal things that are really burdening my spirit but I said I was going to do this and what’s the point in saying it when the first excuse I get to avoid makes me renege. So here it is.
What I think about Obama:
I didn’t want to post anything about the election before it actually took place. I’m not suppositious but I didn’t want to jinx anything. I mean every little bit helps right. So I just kept my opinion to myself. However now that he is good and elected I can bust this metaphoric lexical nut! So, here’s the part where you all blow up. But, really, I was NOT excited when he won, I wasn’t crying, I didn’t have any real deep emotions about it to be honest, of course I’m going to tell you why. I have been struggling with something since Obama became a legitimate candidate for president and it’s becoming more of an issue now that he IS going to be the next president. Basically, is he Black? Now I know that there are many people that are like “are you serious, of course he’s black.” The whole one-drop rule and all that right? Wrong! Obama is a person of color, undoubtedly. HOWEVER, his actual life experience, what makes him, him and gives him his sense of loyalty and character are NOT from the same “salad bowl” American experience that we all share as “average” Black Americans. He grew up in Hawaii with a white family and his father is AFRICAN so to visit that side of the family he went to Africa, not North Carolina, not Georgia, Not Alabama. Not the places where true African American culture was born, the place where EVERY Black person can trace their heritage. Where you learn about what a lynching is and what it means to have to fight for the right to even LOOK at somebody of a different color. I’m ranting. The point is that his “Black experience” is not traditional so by default what Black is to him is not going to be inline with what the greater part of Black Americans feel like black is. His ideas about what’s important to “Black America” aren’t going to be innate in the way that yours or mine would be. Black is more than just a brown layer of skin to me.
Also, I have not fully come to terms with the fact that Barack, although a great guy is a watered down version of a Black man. Ok ok ok, don’t lynch me yet. What I’m saying is look at him, soft-spoken, lanky, slightly goofy looking, hairless (no beard, no mustache, or sideburns) Ultra light skinned, half African half white guy. He’s about as far away from a Black person you can get and still be called “African American” when 99.9% of people think of ANYONE Black, regardless if the person is Black or White, Obama is NOT what they picture. Is that good or bad? I don’t know, but that’s not the issue. The issue is does he really represent the “Black Community” in AMERICA? I for one am NOT so sure. People are calling this some major victory for Black people (well some people are others are trying to steal it like they do everything else and call it a victory for the nation. A Straight Black victory would be too much to handle. Again, even in asserting that his Blackness made this historical it cannot be TOO black so we have to water down the strength of the idea that a Black man can be president and look out for HIS people like the presidents have done who supported slavery, segregation, and other forms of oppression it was clear that as a “WHITE president I’m going to look out for WHITE interest”) so yea, even though people are calling this a victory for Black people I see this more as a compromise. We wanted a Black president and they said no. They told us that we are afraid of you, you are big and black and scary and we don’t want to give you any power. You might turn around and remember all those centuries of oppression and brutal mutilation to your family structures and psychological genocide that we have put you through. You might get upset and turn around and put US in the cotton fields. So what did WE do? We said ok, we are going to show you that we love you enough to let us be in charge. We shaved our face, we cut our course hair, we trimmed down our naturally more muscular builds, and we even went as far as to literally water it down a little with some white. Then we brought Barack to the table and said ok, so, he’s not going to steal your wallet, or rape your daughters. Hell, most of US don’t even think he’s black, how about now?! They took it and we got to have a “Black man” in the white house.
So I say that to say this, the major issue is why do we as a people have to cater to White America? Obviously it’s because they hold all the keys to all the doors. But why do we have to be so happy about it though? When Lincoln wins and frees the slaves to benefit WHITE people because he wanted to urge them to fight and have southern slaves migrate north (NOT because he was just that gracious) that was ok. But for Obama to run and say hey, “I’m Black, things have been fucked up in this country for Black people since they GOT here and I would like to help make things better for my people WHILE I build a better country” would be political suicide.
In a conversations I recently had with a good friend of mine he said:
Standards are set by the majority in any country. Of course. Just like a white person in a Black neighborhood, the white person is expected to conform to the standards from which he is a minority. He will start to listen to the music, wear the clothes and take on the language.
And to assume that Barack Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton, John McCain, etc. all live their day to day life under the conformity of the professional arena is GROSSLY inaccurate and unreasonable.
I live in HARLEM NYC! The definition of White people moving into your shit. And let me tell you my brother that is NOT what happens. When an elitist majority that feels entitled to, well, everything, and has on some level superiority complexes moves into your area, even if there is just ONE. YOU become uncomfortable. They do not change because they see no need to. It’s like the “White man’s burden” they came in and saw something different and did NOT think “oh, lets learn this” they thought “This is different from how we do things and so it MUST be wrong and needs change because we have he ONLY way”
And white people are the MINORITY here. They are the largest singular group but as a whole there are less of them than everyone else. So the standard is very much misrepresentative of the actually population of the country. Lastly all those presidents did what white people do, they got into the white house to push THEIR agendas and to CHANGE the standard. The exact opposite of conformity. They what they do, they just call it “reform” it’s one of those words you hear a MILLION times on CNN but never really get a real definition of, like “Insurgents.” So do they live their day-to-day lives, no. However they don’t conform they push the environment around them become as close to how THEY like as possible. Unlike what Obama has to do which is the opposite, he tries to conform to be accepted.
The reason I say that is because to say that Barack or anybody the runs for president must conform is not wrong, but to say that it’s just the way things are naturally is. A Black man doesn’t just have to conform he has to concede parts of himself, parts of his soul (defined by Webster’s as “a sense of pride shared between African Americans). A white man doesn’t even know what would feel like because they ARE the standard.
Lastly, I just want to say that I’m happy that Obama won. I may not know if I like Obama but I am SURE that McCain was the wrong choice. I just hope that Obama can live up to the standards he let be built about himself and that he gets a VEST!
If this is filled with typo’s and misspelled words sorry I’m at work and typing between calls but …at first I have to say that I was cheering right along with everyone else about the first “black” president in the White House. But as I listened to more and more people focus on the racial aspect of this event I started to question not just his blackness, but also the race as a whole. The question that repeats in my mind is who is defining race? And would it have as much importance as it does now if everyone refused to acknowledge it as “fact”? So far in class every time there has been an utterance of race in opposition to whiteness that group defined in opposition has been classified as “other”. That being said I’d have to agree that true blackness is not really represented in Obama besides the surface of skin pigmentation. I would also argue that blackness and the experiences that come along with it are both something that is determined on a person to person basis. While the experience might be similar it is never truly the same for each person. Obama’s black experience is a black experience that happens to have little similarities with the majority of “black culture” in the U.S. Now with that being said I wish people would move past the issue of color as I believe it has been socially constructed and forcefully integrated into U.S mentality to fit the convenience of “white” America. I would hope that people voted for Obama based on other factors besides his color. For now I have to say I’m still happy that Obama won the election, but I’m simply examining the reasons behind the happiness. Like the man said we still have work to do. So let’s see what we can do.
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