Wednesday, March 26, 2008

ON BARACK OBAMA AND BLACK LEADERSHIP








Dear Good and Gentle Reader;

As we all know we are in the election season, seeking to chose our democratic candidate to run against the very ancient Senator McCain, he whom I call Ghostrider. Others have called him old, senile, grumphy old gramps. Well, all of those things apply. For some reason unknown to me, it seems that everyone in the world wants what they consider our protracted run to end. They want one of the candidates to drop out of the race and give up their dream of becoming president. This has never happened before in my life time, and I hope it never does. Gentle reader, too many of us seem to have forgotten what a presidential race is all about. Candidates must present themselves to us with all their reasons for wanting to become our next president/candidate, so that we may look them over, hear their views and plans, then vote for them in whatever method exist in our home states. We do not now and never have handed the candidacy to and one candidate on a platter, nor have we ever listened to those others(mostly conservatives), telling us that this is a prolonged and protracted race which needs to be over. At this point in time the race needs to go right up to the convention, unless something is arranged between the two candidates themselves.

Gentle reader, I will admit that there is something greatly bothering me here. Both of the current candidates could make history here, so shortening the race by commanding that one of the candidates drop out is nothing more than disenfranchisement to me, on several levels. The candidate who is "asked" to drop out of the race and thereby end their candidacy would be disenfranchised. At this moment, a black man and a white woman, two of the most qualified people in America today, are running for the democratic presidential nomination, and both have enough appeal to make it. In the eyes of those who support each candidate, both are educated enough and talented enough for the job. Yet history stands in the way. History, along with color, gender, and the one biggest past factor in this country, slavery. It's all so mixed up that I have started to think that it has clouded our judgment and our ability to view the candidates as they really are. Now I would ask you reader this; what if the woman were African American? Would you so easily demand that she give up her right to run for president just so that an African American man might win?

This should not have been a war, it should have been a race. It has been turned into a war because so many of the voters express a "hatred" for on candidate over the other, and this, gentle reader has obscured they way things really should run. A race is run by as many runners as want to start at the start line and finish at the finish line. Along the way some of the racers drop out of their own accord, but none are forced out by the other participants, or by spectators gathered along the way to watch the race. Officials of the race are there to make sure that all the participants get the chance to do what they think best, not what the officials or spectators think is best. You always think that those who participate in the race do so because this is what they prepared many years for, and who is to deny them their dream? You? Me? Those outside the race who are merely haters and trouble makers? And what happens to the dreams of the participant? Of those who might have voted for that candidate? Are you willing to disenfranchise the rights of some for the wants and desires of others? Haven't we been through enough of being disenfranchised throughout history?


Months away from the vote still, and I have already made up my mind as to who I am voting for should this candidate obtain the nomination, and yet somehow I still feel left out. When I first heard one of the candidates speak I was excited for the first few moments of his speech. I don't know what kicked in and dampened my enthusiasm for him, I'm still not sure what inner voice I was listening to when I began to feel that he was just another politician, but I did and I haven't lost the feeling yet. In fact it has deepened way past that. At the very worst I have no confidence in this man's skills and abilities to run this country, or the war the current president has gotten us into. I see the reactions to this man and his speeches, I see the amount of people he can command at gatherings, and I am impressed, but that is the only thing which impresses me.

Somewhere today I was reading a blogger who said that to be a Hillary supporter is to be hated, and I know this. I support Hillary Clinton because I think that her candidacy would turn this country around, and right the wrongs of the current administration, though not the war. We're going the have troops stationed there for many years to come, and that's a fact, no matter what the candidates may say. I trust Clinton to do for this country what needs doing to get us back to where we need to be, especially with our allies. I think that by the end of her second term we'll be back to where we were pre-bush days.

Do I think that a black man cannot run this country? No, because many do already, as senators and representatives, it is their votes and decisions that run this country. There should be at least two candidates in the Black Caucus who would be more than able to run this country. Many more are becoming governors of large states, which means dealing with the problems of the country on a smaller scale. Within the next ten years we should have a handful of men and women ready to run this country while black. I simply don't feel that Barack Obama is the one. I'm not going to list the many reasons here, because for the most part I think the good reader should set out to discover what they need to know on their own. I will provide a list of concerns which if addressed could reverse my decision not to vote for him. But I will say this good readers, I think that each and every candidate should vet themselves before stepping up to that run for the presidency, because if they don't the other party will do if for them, and this is my fear with Mr. Obama. The republicans have already vetted him and they know all the dirt worth knowing.

Here are some things that would make me reconsider voting for Mr. Obama;

1. Vetting himself and rethinking his decision because you can best believe that the republicans
have done an extraordinary job of making a book on that man as thick as a training manual

2. Reparations; I feel that as one of the most recently viable black candidates for the presidency
Mr. Obama has the ability to right a wrong in this country, and thereby help black people as
never before, achieve some measure of what is owed them for what has been done from
slavery until now. Just think how reparation monies could help the victims of Katrina

3. If he did only the above for blacks in this country it would go along way to helping us achieve
the so called American dream. I have actually seen some angry white bloggers, mad that we
don't see this country the way they do, as the greatest nation on earth; when was it ever that
to us?

4. Whites will always get what they want and need, so I see it as up to Mr. Obama to help blacks
get what they want and need, from housing and education to health care benefits, I want to
see what his plans are in relation to the needs of our people

5. Just because people declare Mr. Obama a uniter doesn't necessarily mean that he is. He
needs to prove that he is by telling whites that they must still dialog with blacks and that
forgiveness is not to be had just because he gets elected. Anything else he manages to get
done is gravey

I am only too well aware that this is or can be an historic election. We have an overly qualified woman and an extremely qualified and gifted black man running for the highest office in the land and that's what scares me. For Mr. Obama history means much, in fact much more than people realize, black or white. For one thing it could mean that if Mr. Obama is elected, depending on the outcome of his presidency, it may either be 10 or 1,000 years that another black is elected to that office. If it goes badly it could mean that whites will not only never look at us the same way ever again, they will think a thousand times more badly of us than they already do. His mistakes will be magnified, transmogrified, morphed and beaten into the ground, used against the next black who even thinks they want to become president. White folks will rip black folks a brand new ass. If his presidency is lackluster and his decisions not up to par we will know about it.

The biggest misgivings that I have are that Barack Obama can never live up to the expectations that people have of him, and that he let's people have of him, that he is some kind of god come down from the heavens to be placed on a pedestal and worshiped. He has an incredibly huge ego and is extremely cold and calculating, more so than people might think. They have flocked to this man as if he is the second coming, and I fear that all too soon it will be found that he is no more than a common man, and perhaps less of one at that. For me, Obama hasn't proved that he has either the experience or the maturity for the coming task of being president of the United States of America, and if he does win the seat and fails, he will have set race relations back to when whites wanted us as slaves, as if they didn't now.

Reader, I wish I could feel differently. I wish I could feel the euphoria, the high, the togetherness everyone else so readily feels, but I don't. I want to see in this man what everyone else feels, but I can't. This could be the start of a whole new generational way of thinking for us as American Blacks, maybe it would stop that strange ghetto thinking we seem to love, this embracing of a gangster mentality we never had before, a thinking that's taking and keeping us down. But I don't see it. Don't I think it's time for a black man/woman to become president? Hell yeah. Would this solve all our problems, black or white? Hell naw. But if we just got one or two solved, that would help. Don't I think Obama is black enough? That has never been an issue for me, nor will it be. My questions have to do with his integrity, ethics, judgment, sense of history, of where he wants to bring "his people" first, and others later. Do I think he should have a sense of obligation to the blacks he would ask to vote for him? YES! There's just no way you can ask for something as precious as our votes and then not give something in return, and blacks should not just give their votes away, no matter who the candidate is.

The bottom line is gentle reader, we just can't give our vote to the man because he is black. We have every right to ask what's in it for us, why shouldn't we? Who is elected to office depends on us, and if some of us are disenfranchised enough to keep our votes to ourselves it could very well effect this election, and really, do we need that? Just think of two recent events that rocked Obama's world. Rev. Wright. Not going to Memphis. This place represents the end of the dreamer and dreams still unfulfilled in this country. He also should have gone as a representative of the millions of blacks still disenfranchised in this country, and who, for one reason or another will not be voting this election. They, more than anyone else, deserve our thoughts and his.

In the end, because this election is so historically important, I just don't want to see this man handed the nomination on a silver platter just to have it all thrown back in our faces, with all the opposite above; gross incompetence, lack luster skills, poor judgment, and a whole host of other things we've had for the last four years. This really deserves our grave and earnest best thoughts and consideration before we pull that lever come November.

The fact that Sen. Obama did not go to three historical events, one of them commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King, whom he styles himself after, has essentially sealed his fate for me. While I no longer need a "leader", too many of my people still do, and to have seen him there where Dr. King once stood would have been the audacity of hope. I'll keep looking and waiting, but this past weekend didn't help him any.





Saturday, March 22, 2008

BLACK POWER! LAST OF THE MILITANTS












I swear to you, I think black militancy in this country needs to make a comeback because there is some truly weird thinking going on in this country, there really is. This is a response to a column here on Hatepo(formerly known as Huffington Post). I call it that because the posters there do nothing but hate on Hillary Clinton and lap up Obama with a spoon(ickkk).

Let's see, who's on the list of loyal disloyals, Kerry, Kennedy, and how many others, with their strange reasons for becoming the most disloyal scumbags ever to walk the earth? I once had respect for these men, but Kerry now looks like the total idiot that he is and Kennedy is a true TRex, tho I like the dino more than I do him these days. And now Richardson? Who gives a rat's ass? Big mealy mouthed traitors all, and they better not ask for my help or support. I went thro my bank acct and found money to give to Hillary. If she is not the nominee then I will simply not vote for Obama, the Flimflam Man from Nowhere, Bamboozle. But I still don't think he will become the president due to the fact that he hasn't been vetted for the other stuff in his background.

AND I STILL DON'T ABSOLVE WHITES OF THEIR RACIST GUILT!!! AIIGHT!! LOL.

I have no intentions of letting you off for not doing what you should, what you know you should. You will still have to look at my black face and feel whatever it is you feel until you speak to me and begin an honest dialog about the work still to be done in this country concerning racism and the mistreatment of blacks. Absolution cannot be granted by one man, nor can his election to the presidency wipe out almost two hundred years of post slavery racism in this country. I don't understand how you people think that works. So you elect Prince Obama, who ain't done a damn thing, (didn't go to New Orleans, to Jena, to Smiley), or who hasn't done a damn thing that I can detect, just so that you might be absolved of your white racist guilt, then you all go home and nothing more gets done about the plight of blacks in this country than has been done in the last forty years since Dr. King died? Is this what you people really think? Like I said, how the hell do you think that works? Has the Prince told black folks that they get nothing out of this deal? That he hasn't promised them a damned thing, no new housing, no new schools, hospitals, jobs, nothing? REPARATIONS? I CAN'T HEAR YOU! So, Prince Obama becomes King, blacks and whites dance in the streets for five minutes then we go back to our zombified racially stratisfied lives? Walking the streets, never looking at each other, with the same old racist things going on? Give me a damned break, you lazy ass cretins, please. Not only is that physically lazy, it's intellectually lazy and dishonest! You people constantly trip me out with this bogus mess of yours, dishonest and slovenly. Dang, ya'll good at it tho. I mean just think, if these turncoats have swung over to the prince, what makes you think they won't turn on him, given the opportunity? It's just like cheating people, they always cheat.

To me, a fifty-four year old black woman in this country, this is not an honest dialog and it means nothing to me. Obama has shown me nothing, told me nothing, that makes me want to vote for him. His bamboozle has not taken with me, and as far as I'm concerned, it's all a fake. Sorry folks, but he is not the one.