Page six?

No comment, NY Post.

OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

yooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
B arack Obama is innnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn the white house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

(i almost didn't vote. i didn't even know if i was registered until i checked today. i was. i voted. for barack.)

congratulations black folks we didddddddddddddddddddd it there is a muthafuken black FAMILY descendant of slaves in the whittttttttttttttttttttteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee housssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee@!!!

and im alive...to seee it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yoooooooooooooooooooo
that shit is
awesome

i know there are lots of old black folks crying right now
yo...i was sitting in my bed...falling asleep...like, i gotta wake up and teach tomorrow...then my friend called me and said...barack obama is the president....and gurl...i was screaming...cuz i could not believe it

"i know who the next president of the country is gonna be...barack obama or barack mccain"
-a kindergarten girl at school yesterday

Oh Jeez...

I'm gonna just have to admit to being a sucker.

Cuz Barack Obama's speech is making me cry.

*Can I just publicly thank Barack Obama for public loyalty and devotion to a dark-skinned African American woman? It's not something seen often.

And can I thank Michelle Obama for unswerving demonstrated intelligence, grace, poise, etc., in the face of rabid media attacks? Shit when she talks, I BELIEVE her. Barack is truly lucky for her because she lends credence to his campaign in a very serious way.

Though Obama's foreign policy ideas are still deeply problematic to me...honestly if I vote for him, it won't be because I'll expect America to fall back on it's empire building agenda under his compassionate leadership, but it will be because I think the image of his family in the White house will do TONS to elevate the collective self-esteem of little Black kids and grown-ups in this country.

That means alot to me.

The Midnight Bus to D.C...

So...

I know I'm mad late catching up with the political world...probably folks have already seen this but I'm reading Michelle Obama's senior thesis at Princeton on the changing social values of Princeton educated Black folks...

and can I just say that I understand a major reason that I have been so ignorant of the media circus surrounding the Obamas for so long...the media tripe is disgusting and stupid and really racist...and it's a drain to sift through the media commentary to try to get to the Obamas themselves...

But hey those are my two cents.

but it is still too funny how I have done a very recent 360 on the Obama issue...

I think as the elections have become more real...as I have been transplanted back to Brooklyn and have seen the fervor here over Obama (folks walking around with the cutest bags that read I Obama Bklyn instead of I <3 Bklyn)...as I have begun T-Aing for a ninth grade class whose entire focus is on the 2008 presidential elections and the historical context of previous attempts by African-Americans/women to run for the presidency...as I have really sat with the idea that a Black family might really be innn the white house, regardless of what I feel about Ameri(kkk)an politics, even while knowing that on many issues the Obamas WILL have to pander to the white supremacist superstructure (or at least appear to), and they WILL have to appease white folks who are uncomfortable with the idea of inherited white skin privilege...as I have watched the little bit of media that I did let slide through continuously belittle and degrade Michelle Obama...as I have been inspired to watch some of her speeches and have been moved *to tears* by a few...as I am faced with the prospect that we may not have another old billionaire white dude serving as the "face" of the country (the same country that I already feel so deeply alienated from, anyway)...as I begin to imagine myself watching a Black hand on a Bible (though that symbolism disturbs me but whatever, let me not kill my own budding joy...) being sworn into the office of the presidency of the fucking United States of A...this weird sense of intensity just overwhelms me and all I can say is...well I'm actually left wordless...and I feel like all the time-tested rules I know about this nation and the nature of oppression...are fading away...or at least there is a *sense* that they are, I still recognize that the U.S. is still bent on empire building and being a capitalist beast but anywhoo...still I feel as if I don't know the rules anymore, as if anything is likely to happen...if Black folks manage to make their way into the white house after all the shit we been through building the shit and being the economic backbone of the country for centuries, and then being treated like scum and then being told that we are delusional and nationalist and militant and bitter whenever we attempt to process the fullness of what has been done to us, whenever we try to shield ourselves from further pain or whenever we try to just simply LIVE as if we are human beings...whenever we try to pay homage to our folk for being resilient people who survive, through it all...if we stillll get in the white house...that's just gonna be intense. I WILL cry. Annnnd I'mma be on the Chinatown bus express to D.C...

[But I still have qualms about this whole thing, like...]

it bothers me that we live in a culture where certain classes of folks are not given access to tools to lead themselves, and can never hope to see images of themselves in leadership positions...this weird, authoritarian, hierarchical culture where equality may be impossible to come by by virtue of the very way in which it's set up...yea, I think this is why I do all that research on anarchism...something about the idea of self-ownership and self-determination, rather than reliance on "leaders" and "models" is very appealing, but as a society I think we have a looooong way to go before we can ever hope to get to that place of true, radical equality, of self-ownership. It is said often that the only way true lasting change can be made is if the people needing the change mobilize themselves...so no president or non-profit organization can ever hope to fix all the problems for the people ALTHOUGH I do believe that if a president/organization has a vested interest in trying to return power BACK to the people and decentralize it rather than making a "name" for him/herself, rather than sitting back sipping coolattas and feeling happy to be "superior" to the masses, then those are steps in the right direction. If the president recognizes that the hierarchy that by default makes her "superior" is transitory and only a condition of the present times, and that there will no longer be a need for her post once the people are fully empowered...I feel that if a leader has the end goal of giving up the title and empowering folks to lead themselves so that the idea of classlessness might be made real, then they're good leaders.

While I don't believe that United States leadership system was set up to ever operate in that way, to ever give people true authority over their own destinies (rather, I think it was set up to forever maintain an impassable division between the ruled and the rulers while giving off the illusion that common folks have a real say in how they are governed, which is why most of our presidents have been rich white folk who claim to represent the interests of everybody *yawwwwn*, and the richest 1% of the country have such a heavy role in politics and control so much of it's wealth, 40% last I heard), if Barack Obama is in fact one of those people who truly wants to radically rework the notion of power and authority in our society, who wants to empower people and give them access to tools to change their lives rather than sipping on coolattas and playing golf with Bush and cronies and feeling good about himself for being president of the world's largest empire, then rock the fuck on! But even if he's not all the way that (and he is slowly winning me over...it was those adorable cute girls), I think the very SYMBOLISM of him in the white house...a young, Black lawyer who once worked on the grassroots level and paid for school in scholarships rather than inherited wealth, who is married to an equally powerful and well-educated Black woman who holds her ground and comes across as beautiful and determined despite attempts by the media to reshape and present her in those tired roles set up for Black women...Jezebel, Sapphire, Mammy...the very symbolism of this might be enough to trigger a change of consciousness in the hearts and minds of folks in this land...

[and I've noted how I felt the need to include the word "beautiful" in my description of Michelle while only speaking of Barack in terms of his intellectual and nonphysical qualities...internalized sexism duly noted and checked for next time]

But yea. I think it's safe to say that overall, I dig.

Sorry FOX, We Won't Let You Trash Michelle Obama

Sign this petition to get FOX news to stop injecting racism in its discourse, i.e. "Obama Babay Mama" and "terrorist fist jab."

OMG

Yo...


there might be a black family...

INNN the white house...

when I'm alive...

OMG.

Bit by the Obama Bug

Oh God, the Obamas got me...jeeeeez

Those kids are way too cute.

Voting

So I've already decided that I will most likely vote in the upcoming presidential election even though I'm mistrustful of the whole shebang for various reasons:

1. I've never voted before in life so why not "try it out"
2. I've never seen a Black person make it this far in the primary elections and I can barely believe I'm witnessing it
3. I'm succumbing (somewhat) to peer pressure because too many people have treated me like a pariah when I explained that I didn't want to vote...though I should note that if peer pressure was the only motivator for me to vote, it wouldn't be enough to actually bring me to the polls. But in combination with the previous two reasons, it is enough
4. A small part of me is falling for Obama's rhetoric

However, I found interesting critiques of the electoral process of an anarchist website that vibed with me. Here's the first one I read:


As Decision 2004 approaches, the apathetic masses rage through the streets
Thursday, January 15 2004 @ 02:45 AM CST
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 2,091
Anarchist Opinion
Submitted by prole cat

As the official presidential election year approaches on the distant horizon, the jockeying of the candidates has begun. Bush stands unopposed, of course, but the Democratic hopefuls jostle and elbow to be first in line, to receive the coveted “front-runner” coronation at the hands of the media.

Politicos are well familiar with this American ritual. Much will be said and written, now and during the earliest primaries, about the relative (in)significance of the horse race so far in advance of the actual election.

At some point between now and November, 2004, another too-familiar American ritual will begin to be acted out, as the predictable litany of complaints are lodged against the American populace. The less-than-1-in-4 turnout of eligible American voters will be analyzed, and the causes mourned. On the editorial pages of newspapers across America the citizenry will be portrayed as too lazy, too apathetic to bother to stop by their local polling station and mark an X on a ballot. With great sanctimony, readers will be reminded of the blood that was shed to preserve the sacred right to select one’s leaders.

Rarely does anyone question this version of reality. It is a truism that only the most civically engaged will go to the trouble to vote, while those who don’t are a bunch of ignorant couch potatoes who are too engrossed in the latest episode of reality television to do their noble duty.

The mythology of a disengaged American citizenry is always mistaken. This time around, being presented in the midst of a continuing grassroots peace and global justice movement, it will be downright silly. In the context of 2004, the classical formulation of dignified public servants shabbily treated by self-absorbed multitudes will more resemble the tattered remnants of some traditional religious dogma that science has rendered laughable, than serious analysis. It will more resemble the doctrinaire intonations of some Marxist sect whose texts the sweep of history has left behind, than any keen observation of the realities of American social life. Yet in the face of all logic, the press will stick to the script.

Continued...

Before there was Barack Obama...

...there was Shirley Chisholm. And while I'm still deeply suspect of U.S. politics, rock on sister. Annnnd she was from Brooklyn (Brooklyn!). <3



















Who was she?

http://www.jofreeman.com/polhistory/chisholm.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Chisholm
http://www.africanamericans.com/ShirleyChisholm.htm
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/shirleychisholm.htm

"I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free."

"I want history to remember me not just as the first black woman to be elected to Congress, not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and dared to be herself."

"In the end antiblack, antifemale, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing - antihumanism."

"My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for reasons of political expediency."

"One distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality: their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine. They think she is anti-male; they even whisper that she's probably a lesbian."

"Of my two "handicaps" being female put more obstacles in my path than being black."

For the record

Now here's the thing...

I still don't trust Barack Obama--or any politician--and I don't trust the hype behind Obama. And it's kind of scary to me (just a little) to witness how deeply people are rallying behind him. Cuz at the end of the day...American politics is based on lies and deception and bullying and exploitation and I think if you get caught up in it to the level that Obama has, something isn't quite right with ya. But that's just me. I've just decided that I will vote for him to experiment and see if there's anything at all to this process...I'm also voting for him because he's a Black person running on the Democratic ticket (yea, I am, and I would've voted for Hillary because she is a woman there I said it), and regardless of what I feel about the core of American politics...regardless of the fact that I intuitively don't trust him and am sure there's some BS wrapped up in his campaign...and regardless of me feeling like there are/will be people with more power than him pulling his strings when he gets to office...

...it will still feel like a momentous day to me if a Black man wins the presidency of the U.S. Even though I have trained myself to clearly see the "invisible," underlying politics of such an occasion (for example, the light skin/male privilege at work in Obama's campaign, because if a much darker skinned Black woman with nappy hair and better qualifications with Obama ran for the presidency, I don't think she would be as supported by as many people...and Obama's constant bowing down to the modern White supremacist idea of "racelessness," or "color-blindess," a farse in a society that is still very race-based to the detriment of people of color...if Obama were to speak the truth he would NOT be supported)...but even knowing all of this...some hopeful, proud, wistful part of me would STILL be aglow if he won. I would still clap inwardly and feel a little victorious, and a part of me would still say "Take THAT John McCain! And Hillary!"

Maybe it's the part of me that wishes this society really WAS color-blind, that we really did operate like a beloved community. Maybe it's the small part of me that retreats and withers away when I see, hear, feel examples of racism at work, when I am reminded--through gentrification and "revitalization" of old ghettoes so new ones can be created, through all the little Jenas in the U.S., through the prison industrial complex, through the manmade disaster in New Orleans, through schools that purposefully mis-educate--that racism is alive and well, and even more deadly in its present form because we are supposed to pretend like we don't see it when it does its damage.

(I am reminded, again, of Audre Lorde, who in 1981 said, and maybe I even quoted her before:

"Mainstream communication does not want [you] responding to racism. It wants racism to be accepted as an immutable given in the fabric of your existence, like eveningtime or the common cold.")

Maybe it's the part of me that desperately thirsts for what Obama represents, his larger than life projection, his standing in as the archetypical hero in the myth of America moreso than Obama the man, moreso than than America the real-life country founded in blood and ran for profit and greed.

Maybe it's the part of me that can't live while racism does, the part of my spirit that kind of rots away when I examine the very real ways that European colonization, exploitation of indigenous peoples, and enslavement of Africans continues to affect the psyches of all people concerned. Slaves and slave masters. Colonized and colonizers.

And though I feel almost certain that time will ultimately unravel all the threads that have come together to create this fantasy savior of our own projection, that part of me is asking...what have I got to lose by voting for him in the meantime? Nothing, as far as I can discern. It's either him, or Hillary, or John. And if I'm gonna have someone psychologically lull me to sleep, I'd rather him be Black. So sue me.

It's kind of like agreeing to get into a bad relationship where all the lines the girl/guy uses are too good to be true, where all the promises are so fantastical that you feel like you're dreaming...at the end of the day you knowwww what's up, and you know the relationship won't bring you your most profound and most real joy...but you liiiike the feeling of being on your fake dreamy cloud, much more than the feeling of your present reality, so you choose the fakeness, even though you're sure sooner or later, things will fall apart and your guy/girl will be exposed, and your relationship will be exposed.

But you do it anyway because you don't know better, you've never had better, and you're not quite sure you can attain better.