Well … as we plainly know, he managed to become first just as he wanted … and just as Black Americans wanted … to me, it was quite obvious that “any” Black American would do to be elected “first” from the point of view of the African American community … substance … integrity … character … none mattered … ONLY the color of his skin mattered … so any “Black American” was perfectly acceptable to be “first” … just to make it happen so all people of any color can and will be considered next time in our country.
I DO understand … completely … I WANTED to be able to look at the election in that light too when Obama first announced he was running … but I couldn’t.
As a child, I did not really know about let alone understand discrimination or segregation issues … it was not a subject ever mentioned, let alone discussed in my Grandmother’s house. Of course, I do not ever remember any discussion of anything [my grandmother made pronouncements of rules of life to be followed at all costs that were verbally announced in similar fashion to stone tablets being carved with machine gun bullet speed] and I can only remember my grandmother ever laughing once in my entire life.
… laughter, discussion, happiness and singing did NOT happen in my childhood home … country music was played, the radio and TV were heard yes … but my grandmother did not “discuss” anything with anyone. My grandmother was very well-read … but not a peep of “thought” ever left her lips and there was no room for discussion of any kind in her home.
Rules of behaviors and manners of politeness … the do and do not do book of misery [my title for my childhood full of lectures 24-7] was her every breath of talking to me my entire childhood … I lived in books and reading in her house while trying to learn how to be silent with so many questions about life and living trying to burst out of me searching for answers … I loved to go to the neighbor’s house where discussions and thinking lived – that was where I listened and learned about discussions and thinking aloud and about important things like character mattering and being incredibly important in our leaders.
Only silent thinking was allowed in my grandmother’s house … no room for questions or gray area discussions … no room for noisy bursts of ah-ha moments … my grandmother lived similar to the Puritan frame of reference from what I have discovered in reading about Puritans as an adult.
It was a very harsh wake-up call in the late 1960′s Des Moines Iowa riots to discover that people outside my childhood neighborhood lived and thought VERY differently from those in my neighborhood. Until then, I had not realized people hated other people based purely on their skin color … until then, I had never known that my very life was in danger from white and black people just for me being alive, let alone in the wrong place at the wrong moment … the rioting in Des Moines shaped the end of my teen-age years and the beginning of my adulthood beliefs.
I believe our new President Elect Obama is an opportunist … an equal opportunity opportunist who is willing to use and discard any and all no matter their race, religion or creed from my research and reading during this election … I don’t think he likes Black Americans any better than he likes any other Americans … I don’t think he likes any of us at all but I do believe he wants to “rule” us as if we were children needing adult supervision.
From now on, I believe we will get “Presidential Infomercials” … at least until Inauguration Day … BUT … sooner or later though … Obama [and the media] will discover that he cannot script real life as the American President … real life is not a TV or movie script in front of cameras with teleprompters … the radicals and terrorists and fanatics from the left, right and middle all over the world … all are cackling and planning their next move … I am not looking forward to the collisions in our future.
Congratulations President Elect Obama … you are first …. not the last to be either thankfully though and certainly not my choice … in my opinion, “just any Black American” as President is just as awful as “just any White American” as President. We are moving from an extreme right to an extreme left. I would have much rather had Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice or Oprah as our FIRST Black American President!!!!
… character … integrity … principles … trustworthiness … all those things are important in a President to me … looking Presidential during Infomercials … sigh … but now to most of the world, surface impressions … if you look good on camera, on a prepared set, reading prepared speeches from a teleprompter … who cares that you would throw our entire country and every citizen in it under a bus without blinking in a heartbeat. [ME!!!!]
No wonder gun sales are exploding after the election … I too am trying to decide if I should buy a gun to protect myself and my dog from the terrorists that are probably going to be showing up in my neighborhood in the not distant enough future.
I NEVER expected a day to arrive that I would be trying to determine if now is the time for me to go buy a gun!!!!! I am long past deer hunting [I could NOT shoot one when I went deer hunting in Iowa over 30 years ago with my ex-husband - I knew quite well how to shoot the rifle or was it a shotgun I was carrying though!] and I used to believe that the police, National Guard and our military were the right people to be worrying about having guns and cleaning them and taking care of terrorists, not someone’s Grandma … guess I really gotta get Miss Sugar Plum a friend … a Boxer … hmmmm … a 70 pound Boxer that loves me would probably take care of terrorists for me so I wouldn’t need a gun.