The real significance of the Obama Presidency

This is an important read, I think! Moneyshot:

p>But once you come down off of the Civil Rights Movement high, you might
actually start to think about what Obama's presidency REALLY means. His office
and his job have NOTHING to do with race. His being elected DOES NOT improve
race relations in this country or abroad.

In fact, his presidency has
already proven that Americans are still STUCK ON STUPID when it comes to
cultural and racial sensitivity and tolerance, whether they be Black, White,
Brown, or otherwise.

Case in point:

As the inauguration
approached, more White and Latino Americans began asking my husband and I if we
were excited, if we were "going to party" with "our president", and other
paternalistic, foot-in-mouth questions. Am I planning to 'party' with 'my
president' on Tuesday? I'm supposed to be excited about this just because I'm
Black, with no regard to my values or even my political affiliation? No matter
what I stand for, Obama's being Black is supposed to be enough to make me want
to party? That's how you see it? Of COURSE that's how they see it, because
that's all we project! Then we allow the drive-by media to make it all about
race while pretending it's not all about race! Aaaaagh

[...]

Since Black Americans made this election all about having our first
African-American president, please believe that's what his tenure is going to be
about. The media played on White guilt while Obama campaigned, being sure to put
every proud Black face and African relative the man had on national television.
We showed our preoccupation with race, and they showed it to the world (If you
don't think this was intentionally done and that it didn't affect any White
voters, you are fooling yourself). So, understand that Obama's skin is always
going to be in the forefront during his tenure as president, whether you like it
or not, and whether people are willing to admit it or not.

So, what does
that mean?

* If he makes any huge mistakes (and he will), non-Black
Americans will deflect those failures upon Black leadership in general.

* If Black Americans as a whole do not improve their condition during
his tenure, Obama will appear to be an exceptional African-American compared to
the rest of us ignorant thugs.

* If Hollywood gets too progress-happy,
we may see a huge increase in Black characters who are professionals and
government officials in television and movies - that's just superficial and
annoying to ANYONE who watches it long enough.

* All of the cries of
disenfranchisement will be thwarted and considered baseless because if America
can elect an African-American president, the playing field must be leveled,
right? This isn't good if you are a proponent for Affirmative Action or other
special rights for minorities.

* Black History Month will probably bring
out the nationalistic tendencies in most of us, causing us to overdo it and put
our Blackness in everyone else's face, turning off White Americans who thought
that electing an African-American president was about togetherness and the
progress of the country as a whole when it was really about us 'having our day
in the sun'. This will serve to separate us even more.

* If Obama screws
up royally, White Americans won't be voting for another African-American
president for a long time, considering that so much emphasis was placed on his
being African-American.

Don't get me wrong, people; I understand the
historical significance of an African-American president, and it is something
that should be celebrated. However, I believe that we were exploited by the
Democratic Party and the left-wing media in order to further their own causes,
NOT ours! At the end of the day, we play the race card and we make race an issue
WAY TOO MUCH, even when we have the right to do so. It's like the football team
who discourages end zone dancing - when you have a victory, act like you
expected to. When you make your way to success, have some class; act like you've
been there before. We can still celebrate progress while having a certain amount
of necessary reservation. We want people to treat us as if they are colorblind
when we're not. So, when it works in our favor, we're happy. However, when the
racially charged beast we helped create comes back to bite us in the butt, who
will we blame then>

It's kinda already happening!

About that Inaguration..

..Is anybody else dissapointed that when Ted Kennedy collapsed, he didn't collapse on Robert Byrd? Am I alone here?

And Yes, I am going to miss W.!

Man, say what you say about him, but he made the last 8 years filled with fun Unpredictability. You just never knew what he was going to do next. If Global consensus was on something, he would be like "Yeah, ok, that's nice." and then does something else entirely. And he gave all my democrat friends ulcers from worry about what he was going to do all the time, and what "democracy-destorying-fanatsy" they could come up with next. I mean, they almost had me convinced that any day now, he and the jews were going to start another 9/11 and pass a law that would make him a President for life, like their Hero Fidel Castro and his fanboy wannabe Hugo Chavez. Even after Obama was voted in, many really thought that Bush was going to start a War against Iran any second now, just to screw over Obama. None of those things happened of course, but damn, he made them really think of new ways he- despite being the idiotic chimp man they knew he was- would geniusly take over the country and maniplate the public. And his people. I miss his People. The fact that Rumsfeld is no longer allowed to do press conferences where he gets to be his asshole self and torture the reporters makes baby jesus weep a little. And Cheney, who actually shot someone and got away with it, nevermind that that someone was his friend. And who can forget Condi and her legs? Or Wolfie and his haircomb or his tunisian girlfriend? Or John "The Moustache" Bolton, who treated the other UN ambassador's like his Prison Bitches?

I am a fan of Chaos, and he gave us that aplenty, which is why I will always love him. For a good couple of years he scared the shit out of every arab leader in the region, and forced some of them, including our own, to enact some democratic reforms. Not bad for a dumb cowboy, no? Plus, look at Iraq today. (Remember Iraq? Whatever happened to those "No blood for Oil" demonstrations anyway? And how did Obama get the anti-war people to support a war in Afghanistan?) Bombings are down, US soldier casualties are almost nonexistant, they are having a new election where the secularists are favored to win over the islamists, and the country has billions of dollars in reserves (74 billion to be exact), not to mention all the Oil that Bush was supposed to steal and never did. Who would've thought?

Yeah, I am going to miss W. , at least for a while, for all those reasons, and because it feels like he was always there as President anyway. Those 8 years did not pass quickly at all, and they were so tumolteous and filled with Drama, that I doubt anything Obama can conjure up (with the possible exception of him getting a white mistress, which would be AWESOME. Double Awesome points if its Ann Coulter) can equal or parallel. Just the slow and expected fall from grace that will take place over the next 4 years, when they discover that the man is not a miracle worker. Let's hope he really does invade Pakistan. Now that will make things fun again.

Cross your fingers boys and girls. I know I am!

INTERVIEW WITH US PUBLIC DIPLOMACY CZAR IN VIRTUAL ARAB NEWSROOM

In a first-ever event on the internet, our group of seven (one couldn't make it) Egyptian bloggers conducted a “virtual” interview with the head of U.S. public diplomacy on January, 12.

The encounter with James Glassman, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, took place in a new Virtual Newsroom created in the internet community Second Life, for the Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at The American University in Cairo (AUC). Here are some highlights:


The full internet broadcast of the James Glassman dialogue with Egyptian bloggers in the Adham Center’s new Virtual Newsroom can be viewed online at: http://slcn.tv/node/2538.

For those who don't know, Second Life is a three-dimensional virtual world. Individuals from around the world can gather virtually to meet and discuss issues. They appear in the form of 3-D cartoon-like avatars and can converse via audio or text.

To facilitate the use of Second Life for Arab journalists and bloggers, the Adham Center has commissioned a Virtual Newsroom where newsmakers can hold briefings and journalists from around the world can meet informally to share ideas.