Why Are We Being So Ridiculous About the Obamas?

I haven't had much time to blog lately, mostly due to the large workload that never fails to sneak up on you at the end of the quarter...

So... I'm going to do another quick post...

Can I just make one thing clear?

Michelle and Barack Obama are not anybodies Messiah... they are not indicative of the Second Coming... they are not God's gift to the world... and they do not represent the defeat of racism against African Americans, sexism and misogyny against black woman and every other kind of oppression present in the world...

... they just don't...

I'm frustrated because I feel like black people are being totally unrealistic on this one...

Every girl friend I have has had a facebook status talking about how shes looking for "her Barack" at least once... and a significant number of my male friends have had status msg's about how they are lusting after Michelle...

Whats worse... are the articles like the one recently printed in Newsweek that goes so far as to argue that it is Michelle Obama's responsibility to represent all black women everywhere and to fight every negative stereotype thats ever existed about them.

I hate to disapoint everyone... but it's really not...

Now don't get me confused, like most of my friends I am a bigger fan of Michelle, than I am of Barack. And I continue to get excited about the presence of all those black women in the White House... living and not serving... I love the thought of soul food cooking in the White House kitchens and hot combs and pink hair oil in the bathroom...

But at the end of the day, our communities compulsive need to find a new "messiah" to represent us, in the way we fantasize Malcolm and Martin once did, is ultimately what cripples our journey toward social justice in this country. We point to the Obama family as the answer to harmful stereotypes about our families, our women and our men.

We argue, like the Newsweek article did, that if there are just enough "good examples," then suddenly racial and gender injustice will just suddenly stop being present in our lives.

When the reality is... at the end of the day... it just really isn't that simple...

And I would think the larger presence of articles about Michelle Obama's ass... than articles about what she brings to the White House as First Lady... would be indicative of that...

a la higher learning....

WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

peace...

"I Will Be Your President To..."

I don't know how most people felt about last night's speech, but I was truly moved. I was probably more moved or at least just as moved, as I was during his speech after winning Iowa in January 2008.

I'm going to keep this short, but I want to point out one part of this speech that I found particularly poignant.

President Obama told those Americans who did not support him that, "he would be their president to." On the most basic level he was letting those Americans know that he would listen to their concerns and that he will do his to best to address them in a way that makes them feel like they have a place in his... our... new America.

But it seemed to me, that on a deeper level, he was also saying something more aggressive and commanding. By saying "I will be your president to," he was telling those nay sayers who used everything from his race, to his age, to his "community organizing" in a attempt to discredit him, that he was now their president. That picturing him as a monkey, or putting his picture on food stamps, or claiming the White House for "whites only" would no longer be acceptable. Because he is their "president to." And as such, as Americans, as citizens, they MUST, leave their racism at the door and get behind him.

President Obama made it very clear in his instruction to us to "summon a new spirit of patriotism." The racial demons that McCain and Palin tried to resurrect from the American burial grounds of slavery and Jim Crow are not welcome here, and those who attempt to haunt our future with them, will be defeated.

peace.