Hello to you Jack. I have been, and you?
So the fire is at the door now, there is no escaping it. I should just let it in and be done with it. My distaste for the election and its rhetoric, has become one of those life issues waiting to be dealt with like taxes and bills. It is waiting for me, so in spite of my best efforts not to, here goes.
I am deeply disappointed in my country.
We have such an ability to do great things and instead we use our bulk and our resources to aggrandize our own egos. We parade about like we are the world, we are the children, the adults, the rulers, the be all and end all and I find it embarrassing. Each election appeals to a bit of this, but none like a Presidential election, and particularly none like this one. The reason is obvious as the nose on ones face, or more to the point the color of that nose.
Dread as I have, the storm is here now. The gusts come to me in the form of statements like the one a emanating from a relatives mouth not long ago: "You ain't voting for that
Nigger are you?" That is one of the sharper ones. The lesser, but more constant wind is that should Obama loose, the African American population will rebel with charges of fraud. I think, but keep to myself the reply, "oh, like in 2000?"
Fact of the matter is I am not really impressed with either candidate. The world is in a mess beyond my comprehension, the media is pouring gas on the fire and the this media in particular is making it possible for every single person to be heard. Hey, that is why I am posting this. I have not heard anything from either candidate I believe, even if they are themselves sincere about what they say. I have been down this road too many times, see how agendas get derailed. And neither of them seem to want to pick up the cause of my people unless they are wearing some sort of prophylactic. Thank you both, for thinking I should be allowed to visit a partner in a hospital, but as far as you are concerned a partnership without legal standing is what I deserve.
None the less I am going to vote and this time I won't vote for Nader as I have done several times now. I am going to vote for Barach Obama, and my reason is purely racial. I see the only possibility of any good coming out of this mess in the belief that for all its faults my country is capable of electing a person of color to the Presidency. He may turn out to be just as bad as the rest of them, but with him in the White House, my country has an opportunity that I have been hoping would always come along. That white folks, like the ones in my family, like the ones who raised me, can finally face and deal with their fear of black people.
And yes, they fear them. It is not something we talk about , verbally at least, but I look at some of those people that I love and care about and I know that they know what has been done to people of color in this country. I understand that was the underlying need to control them. Being from Virginia also carries with it the genetic memory of the Nat Turner Rebellion. When it was portrayed in the Miniseries "Roots", it was to say the least an interesting dynamic. The grown ups I was watching it with had already been moved by the story, and somehow their consciouses would not let them recoil in selfrightous indignation.
It is that hope I hold on to now. My hope that this man of color (who is also part Cherokee
) who has not one ancestor who was held in slavery in this land, can by his presence be the crux that tips us over, over the mountain top, over ourselves. Yes, my words here are harsh, but the are only representation of a much harsher reality.
Prepare the table of brotherhood. My soul is starved.