Posts Tagged ‘ Barack Obama ’

The “New” Black Family?

By | August 10th, 2009 | Category: BN Channel Race and Ethnicity, Featured 1, Monday 2 | 4 comments

Race & Ethnicity Blog Nosh Magazine{Originally published on Mischief Makers}

I am sure we have all seen and or heard all the ridiculous amount of rhetoric floating around about The Obamas and what they represent.

I have seen a good half dozen, at least, articles about how the Obamas are painting a vibrant healthy image of the Black family for Americans and the world. You know, the new Black Family.

HOLD ON!! WHO ARE YOU CALLING NEW? I only know of healthy black families. I have lived my thirty something years and have only been acquainted with and have seen/known of/associated with hundreds, if not, thousands of nuclear, healthy, hard working black and brown families. These families more times than not come complete with a mother and father who both work hard to raise their children properly and to be earnest contributing members of society. Most of my family and friends are not dealing with substance abuse problems, abusing the social welfare system, are not in and out of jail or struggling with joblessness and being uneducated. To the contrary, most are educated, have extreme high level of morals and ideals; and expectations for themselves and their children. They are like most Americans of the lighter skinned-hue. What is all this fuss about?

I feel like I am being painted like a rare vintage species in the media sometimes. No really, I am perplexed that in 2009, the middle class black family with no outward signs of pathology or dysfunction is still considered an anomoly.

I shouldn’t act so indignant. The imagery of black people in television and movies is still quite distorted and what can one really expect of the middle American who lives in a town with no diversity? Notwithstanding, the idea and concept of a healthy black family being abnormal is still quite disturbing.

Not too too long ago, during my college years, I became used to having to educate my classmates about what life was like having the absence of skin privilege. It was a task many black and brown people undertook for the sake of contributing to the educational experience. That is one of the stalwart positions behind diversity in the Higher Education system after all, isn’t it? –that students of varying backgrounds and of different cultures and identities would be able to interact and learn about one another, and realize, sooner hopefully than later, that they (we) are the same after all.

I do know at some point during law school, I decided that it was an unfair burden for me to have to educate Whites about Blacks and life as a Black person in America and that I no longer wanted to play that game. I was there to learn and get an education and I didn’t like being straddled with the burden of representing my entire race. When there was the topic of civil rights, constitutional wrongs, criminal procedure, I had to defend and educate the experience of Blacks and bear the weight of the pressure of making sure my classmates got it right and understood “where I was coming from”…And here we are having it resurface but on such a larger stage with so many more people watching!


Real Men: George W Bush

By | January 21st, 2009 | Category: BN Channel Politics, Featured 1, Mr Lady, Tuesday 2 | 40 comments

Politics Blog Nosh Magazine {Originally posted on In Jennifer’s Head}

I’ve been planning this post for some time, but decided to put it off until after the election. I wanted it to be a genuine tribute and not viewed as an attempt to convince anyone to agree with me.

Remember the young man we elected eight years ago?


Election Day

By | January 4th, 2009 | Category: BN Channel Politics, Featured 2, Monday 1, Mr Lady | 2 comments

Politics Blog Nosh Magazine {Originally published on Lesbian Dad}

I wake up before 6:00am, with the alarm. Dress fast, leave the house before the kids come to bed. I could count on two hands, maybe one, the number of times I’ve done that before.

Daylight savings time at least enables me to pull away from the house in the rosy-fingered dawn, and not the pitch-darkness.

I nab one of the last parking spots at the First Congregational Church, a good thing, since I don’t know where I’ll be going during the day, and there is precious little easy parking in town. Coffee and donuts arrayed on a table outside the church. A long line stretches outside for people who hadn’t attended the weekend Election Day GOTV trainings there. The rest of us go right up to the door, sign in. Name, cell phone number (to be contacted while out in the field, redeployed, what have you). Where would all this work be without the cell phone, one wants to know.

Folks of all sorts there. Young, old, men, women. All races, but mostly white. But this is Berkeley. I wonder what the other “hubs” look like. Across the room I see a man I met eighteen years ago at an LGBT youth activists’ training conference. Two thoughts: one, he’s aged well. Same mustache, even. Two: thank god he made it through the epidemic.

I’m sent off with two fresh-faced young men to a Presbyterian Church in a professorial neighborhood. It’s none of my business, but I think both of them are heterosexuals. It dawns on me: this is just a straight-up civil rights issue to the young people. Each of us has a grocery bag containing a sign, a stack of “palm cards” with No on 8 essentials on it to distribute (Opposed by: Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dianne Feinstein, and on down). Included is a small spool of stickers, should anyone want any.

I position myself exactly where the poll captain directs me, and over the course of several hours distribute a handful of cards. It’s quiet at my poll, and I’m grateful. Before 10:00am it’s clear that this battle knocked the wind out of me long before election day. I am there to help – really, have to be — but I have no spirit with which to do it. Many people smile on their way in. As many studiously avoid eye contact. But it feels like we’re tired of it all. Maybe I’m projecting.

One white-bearded man sporting a hippie-batik kufi cap chats with me at length…