Saturday, June 21, 2008

Michelle Obama is the real personality in the US election drama


Michelle Obama: a woman of humour and daring.


"Obama or McCain," I asked a veteran Washington politico this week? He shrugged; "I don't know. I really don't. What I do know is that we're going to see the racist underbelly of America like we've never seen it before - and it won't be pretty."

It isn't all that pretty now. The preliminary shots are being fired, but not at Barack. Instead, it is his wife Michelle who is on the frontline, for now. The campaign began in the blogosphere, progressed to YouTube via the Right-wing radio shockjocks and talk-show hosts. Now, what Time magazine describes as the "war over Michelle" is out in the open.
She stands accused of being unpatriotic because of a single remark taken out of context back in February. She is being called "Mrs Grievance" on account of what her critics claim is racial chippiness rooted in her disadvantaged background. And she is, of course, guilty of sharing a '"terrorist" fist-bump with her husband on the night he won the Democratic presidential nomination. (That's the same "terrorist" fist bump that Tiger Woods regularly exchanges with his caddy, and that Prince Charles and even the Dalai Lama have indulged in without attracting adverse comment.)
It's not much of a charge sheet, and none of it would matter except that it seems to be getting to Michelle - or rather to her husband's advisers. On a US chat show this week, widely seen as an attempt to "soften" her image, Mrs Obama claimed she wanted to emulate Laura Bush. Why? Mrs Bush, demure and gracious, has always been an admirable consort to the less than admirable Dubya. But for Mrs Obama, 17 years younger and a whole lot feistier and more interesting, to constrain herself in this way would be a betrayal of who she is.

Because Michelle Obama is the only real personality among the four protagonists in this spellbinding drama. Her husband is almost too good to be true, a Democratic spin doctor's fantasy candidate: the multicultural embodiment of hope, aspiration and America's future.
Republican opponent John McCain belongs to the past. In fact, he looks as if he's leapt straight from the embalming table, so shiny is the skin, pink-hued the cheeks and snowy the hair. He's 72 trying to be 52 and it doesn't work, while his heiress wife Cindy has a Stepford-air about her that is rather disturbing.

In contrast, the 44-year-old wife, mother and career woman has a vibrancy the others lack. She loves glamorous clothes and pearls, hates wearing tights, frequently goes shoeless, and occasionally speaks her mind. She has never been an adoring spouse and has no intention of becoming one.
Even her cookie recipe submitted for public appraisal - and on which the suitability of US presidential partners seems to rest - reveals a woman of some humour and daring. In her day, Hillary favoured chocolate chip oatmeal cookies; Laura Bush played safe with an oatmeal chocolate chunk variation, while Cindy went for oatmeal-butterscotch (although she's been accused of copying the recipe from elsewhere). Mrs Obama, meanwhile, prefers shortbread cookies with orange and lemon zest - and a cheeky dash of Amaretto. What's not to like about this woman? She's evaded the make-over thus far - and she doesn't need one now.
'I mean, "whitey"?'

Rightwing US commentators portray Michelle Obama as an 'Angry Black Woman' out to avenge her race. They couldn't be more wrong, she tells Michael Powell and Jodi Kantor

The Guardian, Saturday June 21, 2008

Michelle Robinson Obama's eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile. As her campaign airplane arcs over the Flathead Range in Montana, she is asked to consider her complicated public image.
Conservative columnists accuse her of being unpatriotic and say she simmers with undigested racial anger. A blogger who supported Hillary Clinton circulates unfounded claims that Michelle Obama gave an accusatory speech in her church about the sins of "whitey". Obama shakes her head.
"You are amazed sometimes at how deep the lies can be," she says. Referring to a character in a 1970s sitcom, she adds: "I mean, 'whitey'? That's something that George Jefferson would say. Anyone who says that doesn't know me. They don't know the life I've lived. They don't know anything about me."
Now her husband's presidential campaign is giving her image a subtle makeover. On Wednesday, she appeared on The View, a daytime talkshow, with Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg, with an eye toward softening her reputation.

Her problems seemed hard to imagine last autumn and winter. Michelle Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, appeared at ease with the tactile business of campaigning and drew praise for humanising, often with humour, a husband who could seem elusive. Then came some rhetorical stumbles. In February, she told voters that hope was sweeping America, adding: "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country." Cable news shows replayed those 15 words in an endless loop of outrage [omitting the next line of her speech during that rally in Milwaukee. "And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change," she said].
The caricatures of Michelle Obama as the Angry Black Woman confound her, friends say. Her own family crosses racial boundaries and she has spent much of her adult life confronting and trying to address racial resentment. Obama was among a handful of black people at one of Chicago's most prestigious law firms, and she later ran a project that sought to defuse racial conflict.
But the 44-year-old, known to friends as the Taskmistress, sometimes speaks with a passion and an insistence unusual for a potential first lady. She tells voters, for example, that "Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual - uninvolved, uniformed."

She says she intends to evoke a John F Kennedy-like idealism and highlight her own journey, but in her commanding cadences, some people - and not just conservatives - hear a lecture. To appeal to voters who may be put off or not know of her biography, the campaign hopes to display Obama as an ordinary American mom. Shortly before her husband announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, Michelle Obama confided in friends: "Barack and I will cut an unfamiliar figure to most of America, a loving, opinionated upper-middle-class black couple with children."

Michelle Robinson grew up in the black half of a divided Chicago. She and her brother, Craig, lived with their parents on the second floor of a two-storey house - "Two bedrooms, if you want to be generous," she says.
Her father, Frasier, was a pump operator for Chicago's water department and a precinct captain in the Democratic machine. Her mother, Marian, brought workbooks home to keep her children ahead of their classes. The working-class neighbourhood was filled with uncles and grandparents, block associations and overarching oak trees. "We knew the gang-bangers - my brother played basketball in the park," Obama says. "Home never feels dangerous."
In 1981, she left for Princeton, an overwhelmingly white institution that cherished its genteel traditions. She was one of 94 black freshmen in a class of over 1,100. The mother of Catherine Donnelly, a white student [and] one of her roommates, spent months pleading with Princeton to give her daughter a white roommate instead. Obama shrugs now. Some classmates resented black people; some resented affirmative action. "Diversity can't be taken care of with 10 kids," she says. "There is an isolation that comes with that" Black and white students rarely mixed socially. When Crystal Nix Hines became the first black editor of the student newspaper, the Daily Princetonian, some black students wondered why she wanted to run a "white" newspaper. Obama, however, was thrilled that a historic barrier had fallen.

In her senior Sociology thesis, she wrote, "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before," and went on to ask, Does immersion in an elite white institution draw black people away from their community?
After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1988, Obama took a job at Sidley Austin, a corporate law firm. She had a handsome salary and the prospect of better to come. Then a close friend from college died. So did her father, who had long suffered from multiple sclerosis. "I looked out at my neighbourhood and sort of had an epiphany that I had to bring my skills to bear in the place that made me," she says. "I wanted to have a career motivated by passion and not just money."

Eventually, Obama started the Chicago chapter of a training programme called Public Allies.
She searched for young talent that could transform these rough neighbourhoods, preaching the gospel of the second and third chance. She insisted that the white [university students] work alongside the gang member or the young mother on welfare.
Every Friday, the young people would sprawl around Obama's office, swapping frustrations. Black people accused white people of being clueless. White members said black members masked insecurity with anger. Michelle Obama probed carefully, sometimes turning up the heat before turning it down.
"I hate diversity workshops," she says. "Real change comes from having enough comfort to be really honest and say something very uncomfortable."

By 2001, Obama, married for nine years and the mother of two daughters, had taken a job as vice-president of community affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Centre. She soon discovered just how acrimonious those affairs were.
Hospital brass had gathered to set the foundation stone for a children's wing when black protesters broke in with bullhorns, drowning out the proceedings with demands that the hospital award more contracts to minority firms. Obama strolled over and offered to meet later, if only the protesters would pipe down. She revised the contracting system, sending so much business to firms owned by women and minorities that the hospital won awards.
She also interceded to alter the hospital's research agenda. When the human papillomavirus vaccine, which can prevent cervical cancer, became available, researchers proposed approaching local school heads about enlisting black teenage girls as research subjects. Obama stopped that. The prospect of [such a trial] summoned the spectre of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment of the mid-20th century, when white doctors let hundreds of black men go untreated for decades to study the disease.

Rather than pulling Michelle Obama behind a curtain, her husband's campaign is pushing her farther out on stage. She remains a charismatic presence, and when she gives her husband a fist bump on stage or talks of him as a father, she is telling voters, this is a regular guy.

In coming weeks, Michelle Obama will unveil a new speech, emphasising her modest background and family ties.
As her airplane descends into a northern Montana valley, she sounds like a woman who wishes she could sit voters down for a long talk. "You know, if someone sat in a room with me for five minutes after hearing these rumours, they'd go 'huh'?" she says. "They'd realise it doesn't make sense."

She extends her long arms, her voice plaintive. "I will walk anyone through my life," she says. "Come on, let's go."

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

JUNETEENTH National Holiday Observance




Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D., Chairman
National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign
National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF)
National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council (NJCLC)
662-247-3364 662-247-1471
e-mail: MyersFound@aol.com
web sites: www.19thofJune.com
www.Juneteenth.us
www.njclc.com


9th Annual WASHINGTON JUNETEENTH National Holiday Observance
Returns to the Nation's Capitol

Congress Urges President Bush to Issue a Presidential Proclamation
Recognizing Juneteenth Independence Day in America

Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D., Chairman of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF) and the National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council (NJCLC), Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Chairman of the National Juneteenth Congressional Committee and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), Senate Host of the U.S. Capitol Juneteenth Congressional Reception, are the invited featured speakers for the 2008 WASHINGTON JUNETEENTH National Holiday Observance

(Washington, DC) - As Senator Barack Obama makes great strides in becoming the nation's next president, Juneteenth supporters are hopeful that the "19th of June" will finally be established as a national holiday observance in America. Senator Barack Obama has been a key sponsor of Juneteenth legislation in the senate and keynote speaker at the annual Juneteenth Congressional Reception.

Juneteenth, or the "19th of June", recognizes June 19, 1865, in Galveston, TX, when Union General Gordon Granger announced freedom for all slaves in the Southwest. This was the last major vestige of slavery in the United States following the end of the Civil War. This occurred more than two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln. Upon the reading of General Order #3 by General Granger, the former slaves celebrated jubilantly, establishing America's second Independence Day Celebration and the oldest African-American holiday observance.

Juneteenth is now recognized as a state holiday or state holiday observance in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Delaware, Idaho, Alaska, Iowa, California, Wyoming, Missouri, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Arkansas, Oregon, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, Virginia, Washington, Tennessee, Massachusetts, North Carolina, West Virginia, South Carolina and Vermont. In 2003, the District of Columbia passed legislation to recognize Juneteenth as a district holiday observance. Many more states, including Utah, Alabama, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Montana, Wisconsin and Maryland have recognized Juneteenth through annual state legislative resolutions, Gubernatorial Proclamations and current state holiday observance legislation.

The US Capitol and the White House were built through the uncompensated labor of the ancestors of Americans of African descent during the tyranny of enslavement


Acappella - Lift Every Voice



Wednesday
June 18th Juneteenth 3 Kilometer (1.86 Mile) Run
12noon DC Road Runners Club

Entrance of FDR Memorial
Washington, DC
Thursday
June 19th National Juneteenth Congressional Reception
12:00noon Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Host

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), Co-Host

(Room to be determined!)
U.S. Capitol Building
Washington, DC
Friday
June 20th NATIONAL DAY OF RECONCILIATION & HEALING
FROM THE LEGACY OF ENSLAVEMENT

National Juneteenth Black Holocaust "MAAFA" Memorial Service and National Juneteenth Prayer Service
11:30am Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D., Chairman
National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council

"Reading of the Names" (Victims of Lynchings in America)

Presentation of the Dr. James Cameron National Juneteenth Leadership Award
Honoring Dr. James Cameron, Founder
America's Black Holocaust Museum

Poetry by Pierre L. Sutton, Jr. & Kevin Reeves
Gospel Music by Lisa Winn

Lincoln Park United Methodist Church
Rev. Harold D. Lewis, Sr., Pastor
1301 North Carolina, N.E.
Washington, DC
Sunday
June 22nd National Juneteenth Worship Service
10:45am Rev. Cornelius Wheeler, Pastor

Vermont Avenue Baptist Church
1630 Vermont Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.

Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.

From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond.

Today Juneteenth commemorates African American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement. It is a day, a week, and in some areas a month marked with celebrations, guest speakers, picnics and family gatherings. It is a time for reflection and rejoicing. It is a time for assessment, self-improvement and for planning the future. Its growing popularity signifies a level of maturity and dignity in America long over due. In cities across the country, people of all races, nationalities and religions are joining hands to truthfully acknowledge a period in our history that shaped and continues to influence our society today. Sensitized to the conditions and experiences of others, only then can we make significant and lasting improvements in our society.

Juneteenth is a day of reflection, a day of renewal, a pride-filled day. It is a moment in time taken to appreciate the African American experience. It is inclusive of all races, ethnicities and nationalities - as nothing is more comforting than the hand of a friend.

Juneteenth is a day on which honor and respect is paid for the sufferings of slavery. It is a day on which we acknowledge the evils of slavery and its aftermath. On Juneteenth we talk about our history and realize because of it, there will forever be a bond between us.

On Juneteenth we think about that moment in time when the enslaved in Galveston, Texas received word of their freedom. We imagine the depth of their emotions, their jubilant dance and their fear of the unknown.

Juneteenth is a day that we commit to each other the needed support as family, friends and co-workers. It is a day we build coalitions that enhance African American economics.

On Juneteenth we come together young and old to listen, to learn and to refresh the drive to achieve. It is a day where we all take one step closer together - to better utilize the energy wasted on racism. Juneteenth is a day that we pray for peace and liberty for all.

Juneteenth Education Project (Community Service)

The Background: Each Year February is “THE” month each year where all major news organizations, schools and civic institutions present displays on Black History. For the rest of the year much of African American History is ignored. An important event occurred on June 19, 1865. Major General Gordon Granger read General Order Number 3 to the citizens of Galveston, Texas. This order informed “the people of Texas…. All slaves are free.” This was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation became official. The site for this information is: http://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm The History of The Emancipation Proclamation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Proclamation Many supporters may never have read the Emancipation Proclamation, nor know of General Order Number 3. The Event: On June 19th read the Emancipation Proclamation; then read General Order Number 3. The web sites are listed above. Please give thought to the fact slaves in Texas had to wait two and a half extra years. During the week following June 19th, each day educate one person EACH day about June 19th. This is a community service education event. It takes the extra effort to educate OTHERS to complete this event.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Out of the mouth of a 'life experienced comes wisdom


A must read....
We need not to forget our real past......the article sent by Mareta

Out of the mouth of a 'life experienced comes wisdom ....and truth. Not bitterness ..."

As a 78 year old American of African descent, I feel compelled to respond to all this 'much ado about nothing' when it comes to the statement that Michelle Obama made about the fact that this is the first time in her adult life that she has been proud to be an American.

The country needs to hear this from the Black perspective.
Long before I was born, my grandfather Joseph Burleson,
owned a considerable amount of land in oil rich Texas .

Because during that era, Blacks could not vote, nor could they contest
anything in the courts of the United States , my grandfather's land was
STOLEN by his White neighbor. My grandfather, who was literate and
better educated than my grandmother, drove to town.
Seeing my grandfather leave, the covetous neighbor asked my grandmother
to show him the deed to the property. He snatched it. She could not insist that he give it back, nor could she have reported this THEFT to the sheriff because of the fact that Blacks had no rights in the 1800's. The prevailing law at that time was he who held the deed owned the land.
Do you think that is something that I am PROUD OF? Right now I should
be living off the oil and gas royalties.

In 1934 when my dad drove us to Texas to meet his family, when he
stopped to purchase gasoline, his daughters and wife
were not allowed to use the washroom. As a man it was easier for him to
relieve himself in the bushes, but not for the females. We were, however, reduced to having to go in the bushes, also.
Do you think I am PROUD OF THAT?

In 1938 when my oldest sister went to enroll in Hyde Park High School,
she was told by the counselor that she did not want to take college preparatory courses, she wanted to study domestic science.
Do you think I'm PROUD OF THAT?
Of course, when Beatrice Lillian Hurley-Burleson went to school the
next day, that was the last time anyone thought that the Burleson girls
wanted to study domestic science.

When in 1943 my parents attempted to buy the 2 flat at
5338 South Kenwood, where we had lived since 1933, in Hyde Park,
Chicago , IL we were told that we could not buy it because there was a
restrictive covenant that said that the property was never to be sold
to 'Negroes.'
Do you think I am PROUD OF THAT?

In 1950 when I graduated from college, I was unable to get a job because I was considered 'overqualified.' the code word for they would not hire me because of my race. All of the want ads called for Japanese Americans or Neisis ( the word given to Japanese Americans at that time).
Do you think that was something that I should have been PROUD OF?

I understood that America was trying to make up for the interring of
innocent and patriotic Americans who were our enemy by association.

My cousin's barbershop was bombed in Mississippi in the 50's because he
was encouraging Black people to register to vote. His wife who had
earned a Masters Degree from Northwestern University lost her position
as the principal of the local school because of the voter registration
activities.
Is that something I should be PROUD OF?

Now we get to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of the Obama family.
Rev. Wright like so many religious zealots overstates many things, that
many of his members do not agree with.
To suggest that Senator Obama should leave the church of his choice is
not only a double standard, but it is absurd.

Would any of the talking heads who are so alarmed by Rev. Wright's
thoughts and speeches suggest that Catholics should abandon their faith
or denounce and reject the Pope because so many priests have molested
children.
These children were exploited and taken advantage of and they had no
choice to even know they could resist, reject and denounce.
To me the situations are parallel, except for the fact that the
priest's behavior is a physical violation of the innocence of children
who are marred for life; and the priest's behavior is a crime.

Rev. Wright's speeches are just words, that one can listen to or not,
the members have a choice.
Should Governor Romney denounce and reject the Mormon Church
because some of their members practice polygamy?

As Senator Obama has previously stated, we have entered the silly
season.

Barack Obama is an adult, and most importantly, he is an exceptionally
Intelligent adult. Like most of us adults, fortunately, we do not accept all we hear or see. If we did, the world would be more amoral, debased and perverted than the world of today is.
I see all these 'so called' pondering's as an attempt to marginalize
the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama. I cannot truly call this racism
because some ignorant Blacks have also spoken disparagingly about him.
I accept this as the darker side of mankind who because of their own
inadequacies, they project their deficiencies on others.

Barack Obama is a very rare individual, the likes of whom the worldseldom sees. Like most geniuses, they are often misunderstood. They are objects of
envy and jealousy. They are suspect because they soar above the average man who does not have the intellectual ability to understand the greatness of special people. They are also targets to be pulled down to the level of the mediocre who cannot stand to see an individual with deep convictions and high standards.

We have not seen a phenomena like Barack Obama in many years and many generations. Like Ghanda, like Jesus, like Einstein, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., like Mother Theresa, genetically, intellectually and spiritually, these people offer the world so much, but they are often maligned and misunderstood.

Barack Obama is a Christian in the true sense of the word.
A true Christian loves his fellow man unconditionally. A true Christian
wants the best and tries to bring out the best in his fellow man.
A true Christian wants to unite and bring the world together in peace
and harmony. This is what Senator Obama stands for; but, unfortunately, he has had to get off point to answer these false charges, innuendoes, and just plain lies.

We are in the presence of an angel unaware in Senator Barack Obama, and
this country needs him, more than he needs us. He is the only person at this time in history who can restore respect for America with the worlds' people. Because of his family background, the influence of his beloved mother who instilled great values in him, the influence of his absent father who vicariously inspired a son to go to Harvard as the father had done, the influence of a minister who brought him to an understanding of the value and meaning of Christianity, the influence of a brilliant Harvard educated wife who inspires him and keeps him grounded; he is the epitome of a citizen of the world. He is of the world because the world is in him; and this is what America needs to bring us out of the abyss to which we have sunk in the eyes of the world.

Like, Michelle Obama, after living in this country all of my 78 years,
loving my country and not understanding why my country has not loved me, I now for the first time in my adult life feel PROUD OF MY COUNTRY because I sense a maturing, a recognition of talent and character, and not color, and a field of candidates aspiring to lead this nation coming from very diverse backgrounds of gender, religious beliefs, national origin, ethnicity, age and experiences. This to me is the HOPE that America is coming into her own and will begin to CHANGE and will embrace the philosophy upon which this country was founded, where all men are created equal and are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Now I truly believe, YES WE CAN!






--
Rhonda

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Barack Obama Vs. Tavis Smiley, Maxine Waters, Bob Johnson, Charles Rangle, Magic Johnson etal: And the Winner is...




Barack Obama

VS.

Tavis Smiley , Maxine Waters, Bob Johnson, Charles Rangle, Magic Johnson etal

And the winner is…..

By Thomas Taylor

After a landmark racially charged primary election where literally every single delegate vote counted in determining its historic outcome; the Democrats have selected a Blackman as its party’s Presidential nominee. In doing so a number of key African American influencers and super delegates across the country; now find themselves on the wrong side of (Black) History.

The United States is poised to possibly elect its first African American President.

Barack Obama, the charismatic senator from Illinois , has captured the heart and imagination of our country as he inspires the nation toward real change. Still with such a narrow margin of victory eerily comparable to the number of Black super delegates who voted against him, it’s scary to think that this propitious moment in our community’s narrative was almost denied on the strength of these few change resistant African American elected officials and trusted media personalities and businessmen.

If there was ever a justification to Bet on Black , now is the time. Barack is arguably the best qualified candidate and represents the best platform for the majority of Americans. Finally we have a realistic luxury of “choice” and in an unprecedented show of unity, 90% of the Black community voraciously jumped at that choice and onto on the meteoric Barack Obama express wagon . Buoyed by the beliefs that our boy, will be given at least a fair chance of succeeding, we boldly acknowledge that “he’s Black and we’re proud.”

With this overwhelming majority of the community voting for change, the question begs to be asked “why our beloved Black electoral and prominent influence peddlers were so determined instead, to uphold the status quo? Did they choose to vote for political expediency and favor or was it simply that they voted out of habit? Maybe they voted for what they thought was legitimately the better candidate. But how much better and at what historical cost?

The ironic twist in this unique situation is that many of those who elected to side against this courageous sepia champion were themselves; stall worth warriors for the cause with enduring legacies steeped in civil rights activism and radical advocacy. They are members of The Congressional Black Caucus, Black Mayors, Legislators along with New York ’s newly appointed Black Governor (himself a historical first). Some, like Representative John Lewis of Georgia , eventually saw the light and switched his support to Senator Obama. Others, possibly guided by some noble moral code, chose instead to go down with the ship in a last act of loyalty to an old friend and her husband.

Presumptive first Lady (my call) Michelle Obama, described this phenomena of reluctance as “a fear of possibility ” from a people accustomed to being oppressed and harboring the long held erroneous assumption that “we’re not ready and that someone else is usually better prepared. She allowed that this is not a mean spirited sentiment voiced by people who genuinely do love us but a result of being traumatized by the strain of their oppression coupled with a possible latent plantation mentality.

Before his decisive victory in predominantly White Iowa, Senator Obama had what many in the African American community perceived as “a snowball’s chance in hell” of winning. Faced with the choice of lesser evils in Clinton, Edwards and others who have a less significant interest in our well being; many of us rationalized that it would be imprudent to “waste our vote” in symbolic support for a well educated, qualified and conscious Black Man fresh off the mean streets of Chicago; where he championed community concerns and interests. Then came Utah and Wyoming where one senator quipped; that on any give day; Obama while campaigning there, was likely to have been the only Black person in the entire state. Still he carried those states by impressive margins; ultimately forcing out all but one of the so called “better qualified” White candidates on the slate.

And now, Presidential Contender Barack Obama stands victorious and alone atop of the Democratic ticket. Indeed the evolution of the African American male image has come into clearer focus. Finally a beacon icon for the world to see that’s neither athlete nor entertainer; “wanted” but not criminal. The fragile line of hope once drawn in the shifting sands of our past is now forever etched in a stone ballot box marked “Yes We Can,” and mounted on the audacity of hope platform.

We all had our chance to influence this election’s outcome. We had a once in a lifetime chance to determine “What history we would make and how each us in this generation of Negro decedents, chose to be remembered?

One can only wonder if the aforementioned venerable champions of the people suffer silently in their moments of solitude, wishing that they had been more courageous and forward thinking; lamenting their now tainted legacies.

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

“… Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won .”

It’s time now to move on and time to heal. There’s work yet to be done.

How about a family reunion? (Psst! Let’s not mention this to BJ, cousin Bob, though).

Friday, June 6, 2008

Donate to Obama not DNC

On Jun 5, 2008, at 6:54 AM, Ronald R. Bisson wrote:

I sent this out to the group to be forwarded I want to make sure you both got it and want to Know what you think of the Strategy of donating to Barack not the DNC
----- Original Message -----

Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 7:38 AM
Subject: Donate to Obama not DNC

GOP fears Obama's money machine

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/10868.html

Please forward to your friends

DO NOT DONATE TO THE DNC.

CONTINUE DONATING TO OBAMA! NO MATTER WHAT!
I don't think we should start donating to the DNC. The DNC is disloyal and
weak! We cannot trust them to stand behind Obama. If Obama has a lot of money
in his account and they have a little then they will have to stay loyal to
Obama. Money is Power, and Obama has a lot of it. Also, we'll see how serious
Hillary is about getting her supporters (especially the wealthy ones to support
Obama) to support Obama's candidacy. If they begin donating to the DNC, then we
know that they are supporting Obama. Hillary has a lot of rich supporters.
They can donate to the DNC. Remember, before Obama, rich people were the ones
supporting presidential campaigns.
If we donate to the DNC, then we won't know if Hillary's rich supporters are
donating as well. We won't know who's really carrying the campaign.

Also, If something happens, the DNC members can easily walk away from Obama
before the convention, and use our money to support Hillary. Look at how easily
they overturned a contract signed by both Obama and Hillary. Look at how
hesitant and scared they have been to endorse Obama. These folks are in it for
themselves. Loyalty is not a part of their DNA. It might seem rational that
they will support Obama since we're the ones donating. But they will not know
who's donating.

If they can easily overturn a legal contract, ignore the millions who did not
vote in MI and FL, continue to allow Hillary to make pop. vote arguments (when
we know it's wrong), and allow supporters to disrupt and yell at them in
meetings, it's apparent they are weak and have no control.

Continue donating to Obama, NOT the DNC until we know that most of the
Super Delegates have backed Obama. Hillary is not ending her campaign, and she
will not give up. Please don't be fooled. Money is power, and we want them to
know Obama has all of the power not Hillary Clinton.