Wednesday, October 29, 2008

You don't know me homey.

I like Barak Obama. I think that the Senator is smart, geeky, and charming. I agree with many of his stated positions, while at the same time feeling disappointed with some of his more obviously politically motivated campaign choices. Barak’s rhetoric is sufficiently inspiring, but doesn’t instill the sheepish sense of awe in me that others seem to find in it. I guess I’ve just heard some damn good rhetoric in my time; blame it on Bartlett’s Quotations.

John McCain seems a little weird to me. Shot out of a cannon weird. Or maybe shot down over Vietnam and bayoneted in the groin weird. Truth be told, if I were in a room with either presidential candidate, I definitely wouldn’t be the smartest person in the room; Id probably be serving drinks.

There is however, the off chance that I’m in the room performing some other function. Maybe I won a radio contest, maybe I’m with building maintenance or something. Hell, I could even be a crazy stalker. Don’t limit me!

So the vibe I get from McCain is that he immediately walks in the room and orders a Johnny Walker Blue double (no ice, ice is for pussies) and before I can explain to him that I’m not the bartender, has me fired. As I’m being tossed out, I realize that I’m wearing a white tuxedo jacket and suddenly appear to look exactly like Louie Armstrong; the force of John McCain’s expectation of who I must be has sufficiently altered reality around me to the point where I transform against my will into “po colored folk”


Barak, on the other hand breezes into the room sizes me up, and uses the most non-offensive black slang that he possibly can, to ascertain if, in fact in harmony with his expectations, I am the drinks guy, “Sup?” he asks; I think he heard it in a Jay-Z song. In stead of “what the fuck?” I’m compelled to respond in a similarly ritualistic faux black fashion. Maybe I even say something like “Sup brother Barak?” Giving him my toothiest grin and paraphrasing Cornell West (retire already you relic and let some one else suck on the intellectual race baiting tit for a while. Just kidding. Love ya bra). So anyway, I’m extremely uncomfortable in a room with either of these guys. Because neither of them get me.

Each of these men thinks that my internal dialogue is something along the lines of “oh lawdy if I’s can just has a chance in this white mans, and highly educated black mans (who was raised by white peoples), I would surely appreciate it.” So here we have the traditional liberal conservative “black problem” argument played out with a slightly different cast of debaters. Jesus, just hit me over the head and steal my vote.

Well fuck that. The idea that I would vote for anyone because of the color of their skin is reprehensible to me. I was a clean and articulate black man back when it was meant as an honestly doubled edged pejorative, and I’ll continue to pronounce the consonants on the ends of the words I say long after doing so has gone out of style.

If this is in fact a “post racial election” stop pandering to the stereotypes and earn my vote based on what you’ll do for this country and not who you presume I am and what you presume I feel. Something about that ‘too cool for school” attitude of yours make me believe that a “guns and religion” speech about me has been given (off the record) once or twice in your campaign. Thanks but no thanks, I’ve no need to be legitimized by you; I’ll open my own doors than you very much.

How will I feel about a black president? Meh, forty years ago it would have been a great achievement, but I don’t see any real harm in letting the baby boomers have their last wet dream before they go wherever the dinosaurs wandered off to.


So I’m voting for Barak and wishing there was a better choice on either side. Skin is, after all only skin deep.

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