"Not Yo' Mama"

Okay, so its been a while since I published my last post. In fact, I haven't posted on this, my main blog, at all in the new year. Periodically, a thought would come to me, and I would keep telling myself that I needed to sit down, but I wouldn't, and the thoughts kept piling up, and then I would forget what I was thinking, and I've been trying to type out a new story that I told King weekend, and... and...

Then Barak Obama announced his official intention to run for President of the United States, and I had to say something. Could I be more excited?! No! To borrow a quote from a fellow Democratic candidate ''I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy... that's a storybook, man.''

(Yeah, folks took potshots at Biden, but we all know he meant no intentional disrespect to Sen. Obama or his Black political predessesors who also sought the top office of the land: Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton. What's more telling than his use of the innocuous adjectives "clean," "bright" and "articulate"--although they may betray Biden's heretofore hidden affinity for the occassional OutKast "So Fresh, So Clean"--what's more telling is Biden's use of the modifier "mainstream". I believe Biden's comments are not so much historical inaccuracy as Sen. Obama has suggested, but rather cultural confession. "Mainstream" as used in this instance is no less code than the negro spiritual "Deep River" or "Swing Down Sweet Chariot" must have been for the soon to be runaway slave. What Biden was confessing in the use of the term "mainstream" was that Sen. Obama is in his opinion the first Black candidate that the average white person might see themselves supporting--and "that's a storybook, man!'')

2 things strike me right off the bat about Sen. Obama's candidacy. First, its a testament to the power of and difference between the heritage of one whose ancestor chose to immigrate to America, rather than being forced to as a captive in chains. Choice creates a whole different psychology. This simple truth, I believe, explains the difference beyond a dissimilarity in complexion (still we can never completely discount how that factors into opportunity) between the immigration experiences of Irish, Italian and Jewish migrants--who each had their share of undeniable difficulties--as oppose to those of most Blacks. It may also account for the less drastic yet significant differences between the experiences of Latinos (for whom the immigration process is woefully inadequate) and Asians (against whom the first immigration 'laws' were written) and that of those decendent from former slaves.

As Sidney Poitier articulates in his book The Measure of A Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, there is something empowering about having a language to call one's own and a land to call home that one can go back to if things don't work out. Yes, African-Americans like myself who have heretofore resisted resignation can and may in the post-modern world ultimately, consciously accept America as our home of choice, but its difficult to choose so by default, that is to say because we believe (or have been led to believe) there are no other sensible options. Maybe after Obama is President, and I can begin to see real possibility for the reorganization of power. Still I am glad I have waited, for I've recently come to believe that partnership, togetherness or collaboration completely on someone else's terms is employment at best and slavery at worst, but more often than not exploitation. It's the very thing the original 13 colonies chose to rebel against, and I'd be a fool as one seeking to claim that heritage as my own to submit to the vestiges of such colonialism.

The second thing that strikes me about Obama's candidacy is that, son of an immigrant by choice or not, he turns out to be the very thing advocates of slavery and segregationists feared most. How's that for poetic justice ;-).