YES WE CAN . . . YES WE DID . . .

Barack Hussein Obama

The first Black President-Elect

of the United States of America

"Ah--so this is what the New World hath finally wrought . . . "

Joseph Asagai

from Lorraine Hansberry's

A Raisin In the Sun

A Vote For Change In 2008 . . .

I early voted yesterday. I live in North Carolina, one of those all-important "swing states" and folks here have been early voting since last week. Given all of the local new reports about the record turnout and having witnessed for myself the overflowing parking lot at the library when I intended to cast my vote, I knew to arrive early. So, even though the polling place didn't open until 11:00 am, I arrived at 9:30. It was good thinking on my part, because, sure enough, there was aleady a line of 15 or more people in front of me.

Patience is not one of my virtures. Most of my friends and family members know if they keep me waiting for too long without a damn good reason, I either leave or start (whatever it is) without their slow behinds. The last time I can remember waiting in a line with that many folks in front of me was for concerts tickets to see the R& B artist, Maxwell back in 2001. The main thing the Maxwell ticket line had going for it was constant and steady movement. In contraxt, the early voting line I joined yesterday at 9:30 was one that didn't lurch forward until 11:00.

Still, I resisted the urge to say, "later for this." No, I stood there with the others and waited, comforted by the fact that at least I'd arrived early enough to stand inside of the building as apposed to outside in the elements. My decision to endure the 1 and 1/2 hour wait was further affirmed when by 10am the line behind me was already outside and consisted of probably three times the number of people standing in front of me.

I first registered to vote shortly after my 18th birthday. Even though I haven't necessarily voted in every election since then, I've always taken the right to vote seriously. For me, it goes beyond "civic duty" or even the often touted, "folks died for your right to vote," line of reasoning.

I don't have any memories of the speeches, rallies, protests, marches, sit-ins, beatings and murders that took place during the Civil Rights movement. Even though I was living in Memphis, TN at the time, I was a preschooler when Martin Luther King was assassinated. All I can remember and never will forget from that chaotic and emotional period in our nation's history is the sight of my mother weeping . . . (see here for the full story)

But what I do know and fully appreciate is my history--my own personal history . . . my family's history . . . United States history as well as the history of African Americans in these United States. And I know it hasn't all been pretty and triumphant or the crystal stair (smile) that some might have us believe. There has been, on the other hand, plenty of inexcusable, unwarranted and unacknowledged horror, pain, struggle, poverty, depravation and inequality, the kind of wich doesn't necessarily fill me with pride for my country or fellow citizens.

Just this past weekend, a suspicious event at one of the local polling sites, prompted my husband and I talk to talk to our school-age son about the historic suppression of the Black vote, the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and the election tampering and tomfoolery that's occured in recent years in places like Ohio and Florida.

So, if you're waiting for me to say, "It doesn't matter who you vote for, as long as you vote," it ain't gonna happened (smile). Sorry, just because something is the nice, polite, politcally correct thing to say, doesn't make it a truth I'm willing to buy into. Nope, for me, the truth is, it does matter, this year more than ever. Our nation seems to be at a crossroads and I, for one, am fearful of what lurks at the end of the narrow and treacherous path we've been plodding and stumbling along for the past eight years . . . if not, all of my life and then some.

That's one of the main reasons why, yesterday, I was so willing and eager to wait in an unmoving line for however long it took to cast my vote . . . my vote for change. And if you really want to know the truth, some of us have been standing in this line for generations. When the time finally came for me to press that lever, don't think I didn't feel the presence of all those who dreamed of such a moment, but never lived to see it, standing right there beside me.

And later that evening, when my son arrived home from school and the first thing out of his mouth when he burst through the door was, "Mom, did you get to early vote?!" not only did his interest and enthusiasm make me smile, it made me view my relatively small sacrifice within the larger context of generations to come.

THURSDAY THIRTEEN #8 . . . 13 NOTABLE QUOTES BY POLITICIANS . . . THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY . . .

1) "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." (George W. Bush)

2) "I did not have sex with that woman." (William J. Clinton)

3) "I am not a crook." (Richard M. Nixon)

4) "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." (John F. Kennedy)

5) "Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country." (Marion Berry)

6) "My belief is, we will in fact, be greeted as liberators." (Dick Cheney)

7) "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." (Abraham Lincoln)

8) "Yee-aargh!" (Howard Dean)

9) "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself." (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

10) "I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times." (Jimmy Carter)

11) "There's not a punk bone in my body." (Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton)

12) "They misunderestimated me." (George Bush)

13) "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes." (Winston Churchill)

Do you have a favorite quote by a politician? Do tell--good, bad or ugly--even if it's not one on my list.

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WHAT I LIKE ABOUT . . . BARACK OBAMA . . .

What I like about Barack Hussein Obama extends beyond his charisma, his candidacy or his politics. I read his first book, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, well before he announced he was running for our nation's highest office. Matter of fact, I can remember saying in the book club in which I belonged at the time, "If there is to be a "Black" president in my lifetime, if will more than likely be Barack Obama."

My favorite section in Dreams From My Father is one entitled, "Origins." In it, Senator Obama speaks candidly about his family, his unique upbringing and his feelings about his racial/ethnic heritage. While writing about his college years, he mentioned a young woman he called, "Joyce." He described her as a "good-looking woman who had green eyes, pouty lips and honey-colored skin." He talked about the day he asked Joyce if, by any chance, she planned on attending the upcoming Black Students' Association meeting.

He said Joyce looked at him funny, shook her head and told him, "I'm not black. I'm multiracial." Then she went on to tell him about "her father, who happened to be Italian . . . and her mother who happened to be African and part French and part Native American and part something else." Then Joyce, who Obama described as being on the verge of tears at that point, went onto tell him that Black people were always trying to make her choose, while White people were willing to treat her as a person.

What Obama conclued about the experience, made me smile, if only because I've often thought/felt the same when I've encountered people like Joyce . . .

In Barack Obama's own words: "That was the problem with people like Joyce. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounded good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. It wasn't a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street . . . Only white culture could be neutral and objective . . . Only white culture had individuals. And we, the half-breeds and the college-degreed, take a survey of the situation and think to ourselves, "Why should we get lumped in with the losers if we don't have to?" (From Dreams From My Father, pages 99-100)

In part, what I like about Senator Obama is that he appears to have made a conscious decision to cast his lot with those perceived as "the losers." It amuses me that so many (both Black and White) appear to take issue with Obama's choice to identify himself as an African American and align himself with the African American community. One has only to read his book, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance to understand that Obama fully appreciates all of the various elements that helped make him who he is. In fact, I'd dare say, even more so than his African father, the book is about how his White, mid-western bred mother helped shape and influence his African American identity. I view how Barack Hussein Obama has elected to define himself as both an act of love and one of defiance.

For me, the real beauty of Obama is, one, that he readily and proudly embraces ALL that he is, as well as ALL to which he is connected--his White American mother, his Black African father, his White relatives from Kansas, his Black relatives from Kenya, his Indonesian step-father, his half-White, half-Indonesian sister, his South-Side of Chicago reared African American wife and their two little girls. And two, Obama steadfastly refuses to embrace a solely negative and stereotypical view of what it means to be Black . . . African American . . . or . . . a person of color.

(Written while listening to Lupe Fiasco's "Kick, Push"; "I Gotcha"; "He Say, She Say"; and "Day Dreamin'" from the cd entitled Lupe Fiasco's Food and Liquor).

CLINTON, LEADERSHIP, ADORATION & BLACK FOLKS (A Few Reflections via Randall Robinson)

Bill Clinton He purchased our affection with gestures . . ."our support should not be so easily obtainable." (Randall Robinson)

Randall Robinson is somone whose work I've been intending to read for years now. I remember watching an interview with him on some cable network, shortly after his book, THE RECKONING: WHAT BLACK FOLKS OWE EACH OTHER (2002) was released. Quite a few of his thoughts and relections made me stop, think and go, "Hmmm."

Recently, while cleaning out a folder, I ran across a scrap of paper on which I'd scribbled a few of the sentiments Robinson had expressed on that particular program. Robinson's comment about Clinton (see above) struck me, not only because it was a view I shared, but also because I hadn't heard any other African American liberal or moderate, worthy of respect, express such. My notes on the Robinson interveiw also included the following two gems:

Leadership "Leaders are assigned for the convenience of people who dominate you."

Adoration "The school teacher we don't respect like we used to--the wealthy bandit, we adore."

Robinson's view on adoration is one that has serious implications, I think, not only in the world of politics, but also, increasingly, in the field of entertainment. But then again, I guess that really should come as no surprise. Historicially and across the board Americans appear to have a warped fascination with outlaws, gangsters and thugs.

From yesteryears' large than life Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde and Al Capone to today's John Gotti, and his fiction-drawn cronies, Tony Montana (Scarface) and Tony Soprano we do seem to love us some ruthless, money-grubbing bad boys and gals. And don't let me forget all of the pimps and drug-dealers, the rouge preachers and politicians and the thieving CEO's who've taken up the mantle and become the real American Idols. Yeah, there's some thug-love out there, for real y'all . . .

But anyway, the following are a couple of other books by Randall Robinson that I hope to read one day and may, perhaps, be of some interest to some of you:

THE DEBT: WHAT AMERICA OWES TO BLACKS (2001) and

QUITTING AMERICA: THE DEPARTURE OF A BLACK MAN FROM HIS NATIVE LAND (Reprint 2004).

If you've read any of Mr. Robinson's books, feel free to express your opinion (whether good or bad) about what you read in the OSM's comment section. Also if you agree or disagree with his reflections about Clintion, leadership and/or adoration, please don't hesitate to share your views.