The Inauguration went off almost without a hitch today. All the expected pomp and circumstance came off pretty much as planned and the nation celebrated the dawn of a new presidency. As i was watching the coverage on television the reporters on tv kept pulling people from the public aside and asking them the same question over and over. "How do you feel today about the country's first black president?" It was a cliche question and it usually garnered the same cliche answer. First of all 9 times out of 10 they were pulling over a black person and when they answered the question 10 times out of 10 it was something like "Oh I never thought i would live long enough to see this day." Once in a while though you got a different answer. There was this one reporter who went to a black middle school on Long Island that had recently changed its name to the Barak Obama Middle School and she asks one of the students there the same question. She was a teenager and she said that O.K. now that we got Barak Elected he owes us. Us meaning the black community, that's how she put it. You don't usually expect teenagers to say anything intelligent and they don't usually do and it didn't happen in this case either. As soon as she said that it got me thinking. She seemed to have no understanding of the millions of white votes it took to get Obama elected. More white votes than black votes in fact. Despite this She was like Oh No, black America got this done. As soon as she said it i got slightly pissed. I was thinking well o.k. lets see if i got this straight. Barak Obama's black father abandoned his family when Obama was 2 years old and went back to Kenya where he ends up over the years fathering 7 more children from a bunch of other women and ends up visiting his son Barak only one time the rest of his life. Obama ends up being raised by his white mother (who used to push him to study his school lessons for three hours every morning before he even went to school) whom he has said was "the kindest person i have ever had in my life" and his white grandparents in Hawaii and they not only love him and care for him they also raise him and educate him and he ends up going to Harvard and becoming the intelligent, thoughtful, charismatic person we all see before us today. So i was thinking what does a guy like that owe the African American Community in particular. The answer is he owes them nothing more or less than he owes any other community or race or anybody. Maybe that teenager and the rest of black America will get its head around this fact someday but Obama has been elected President of all the people of the United States and not president of Black America. Does he owe black America? Yes, but he owes all of America too. As president he owes everybody the best he can do to those who supported his campaign and even those who didn't. If your an American the President of the United States owes you. He does not owe the blacks first or the whites first or the women first or the Hispanics first. He owes everybody first if you know what i mean.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
"Messiah" Like Expectations For Obama
The Inauguration went off almost without a hitch today. All the expected pomp and circumstance came off pretty much as planned and the nation celebrated the dawn of a new presidency. As i was watching the coverage on television the reporters on tv kept pulling people from the public aside and asking them the same question over and over. "How do you feel today about the country's first black president?" It was a cliche question and it usually garnered the same cliche answer. First of all 9 times out of 10 they were pulling over a black person and when they answered the question 10 times out of 10 it was something like "Oh I never thought i would live long enough to see this day." Once in a while though you got a different answer. There was this one reporter who went to a black middle school on Long Island that had recently changed its name to the Barak Obama Middle School and she asks one of the students there the same question. She was a teenager and she said that O.K. now that we got Barak Elected he owes us. Us meaning the black community, that's how she put it. You don't usually expect teenagers to say anything intelligent and they don't usually do and it didn't happen in this case either. As soon as she said that it got me thinking. She seemed to have no understanding of the millions of white votes it took to get Obama elected. More white votes than black votes in fact. Despite this She was like Oh No, black America got this done. As soon as she said it i got slightly pissed. I was thinking well o.k. lets see if i got this straight. Barak Obama's black father abandoned his family when Obama was 2 years old and went back to Kenya where he ends up over the years fathering 7 more children from a bunch of other women and ends up visiting his son Barak only one time the rest of his life. Obama ends up being raised by his white mother (who used to push him to study his school lessons for three hours every morning before he even went to school) whom he has said was "the kindest person i have ever had in my life" and his white grandparents in Hawaii and they not only love him and care for him they also raise him and educate him and he ends up going to Harvard and becoming the intelligent, thoughtful, charismatic person we all see before us today. So i was thinking what does a guy like that owe the African American Community in particular. The answer is he owes them nothing more or less than he owes any other community or race or anybody. Maybe that teenager and the rest of black America will get its head around this fact someday but Obama has been elected President of all the people of the United States and not president of Black America. Does he owe black America? Yes, but he owes all of America too. As president he owes everybody the best he can do to those who supported his campaign and even those who didn't. If your an American the President of the United States owes you. He does not owe the blacks first or the whites first or the women first or the Hispanics first. He owes everybody first if you know what i mean.
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