Sing Dammit, Sociologist

Barack,

I said the other day in class that race is no longer a primary factor in the average Americans' behavior- that similarities in values and actions were. My argument was that most white people only care that you act just like them, more than the color or your skin.

Man, was I wrong.

I've been watching the news this week- how could I not? And I have seen how folks are making Rev. Wright's words somehow about you...and about your love for this country, therefore your ability to lead it. And I have, to be much more stringent than your wonderful wife, rarely been less impressed with America than I am at this moment.

First, you did not ever endeavor to make race a part of your presidential race- you were loved and revered as the "transcendent candidate." But of course, certain people (I-can't-believe-we-ever-called-you-Black-Clintons) want to make it THE issue. And now you have to address not only your beliefs, but once again, like we do every day in classrooms, boardrooms and bars, represent for the entire race. And the question white folks finally want answered, once and for all, is this: "How can you be president, when you (and you people) hate America?"

That's the fear- the Fear of a Black (Barack) Planet. What the hell will happen to white people if they participate in electing someone who has centuries and continent's worth of reasons to hate the European, Christian, capitalist and colonialist values of a nation that has done very little to include you as a free citizen? I mean, the man is the nexus of what rage towards white Americans should be- he's half black, African at that- half white, the product of a single poor white woman, who by all accounts seemed to be a feminist, and was definitely and activist (and a n---- lover, but we won't speak ill about the dead); he was born in Hawaii, a colonised nation made into a state, and educated globally, witnessing firsthand the impacts of a so-called "superpower" on Third World countries. If white people were in his shoes, they'd hate them too...so how is he so hopeful? How can he be so...nice?

Enter Rev. Wright. Finally, something that proves that Barack is just like the others- he, too, hates white people. he, too, hates America! Because if he can listen to a pastor who can develop sermons that have snippets of sentences, that in a soundbite can appear hate-filled and vitriolic (no matter that they may be completely without context or analysis- the words were said!), then Barack has to believe everything the man says. He's no better than his wife; who just got around to being proud of America (and we know she's an emasculating he-woman, with her pearls and support and intelligence); he's no better than those hip-hop rappers who want to take our country over and transform them into drugged out ghettoes, with our daughters as their lily-white prizes; they're the reason we clutch our purses and scurry towards the exurbs after 6 p.m.

The message is clear- by attending the church of Rev. Wright, he proves it once and for all- Barack Obama doesn't care about white people.

***

I am often fed up by the media, and what it does, and how it does it. Bottom-feeding sensationalists pummeling each other for rhetorical booms that scare the public into purchasing their sponsors' solutions. The media is not a righteous beacon of truth- it is, anymore, obvious muckraking. And the most disappointing thing is to watch Americans eat up the rhetoric like a baby gumming applesauce; to see critical analysis and intelligent dialogue go out the window, replaced by panic and hysteria; to see them tear down what they have built up like a Tower of Babel that got too high and too scary.

Barack Obama now has to explain to white people, in a way that doesn't scare them, how the experience of being black is different, and valid. He has to do it in a way that convinces him that we won't riot and kill them; that we do love America; and that, if elected, he can control us crazy Negroes at home. Cuz if he can't control an old pastor from saying crazy shizznit and attacking the values that white folks hold dear, how's he gonna keep the rest of us cousins from acting a plumb fool and turning the White House black?

*End angry political rant*

 ...Made me cry.

I'm sitting in my favorite coffeeshop, procrastinating writing a final. My heart is as heavy as the skies outside, and thank God it's raining so hard, I don't feel compelled to cry.

I am one of those people who grew up just past the Civil Rights Movement. I'm privileged to have never grown up with any kind of overt and pressing segregation, nor any legal overtly racial discrimination policies (Reagan doesn't count). And my mom, trying to give me a better life, sent me to mixed schools and encouraged me to affiliate with all the students in my classes. Especially in elementary school, I had a rainbow coalition of friends. I knew we had differences; my friend Jennifer was black, but had a white mom, long, silky hair, and lived with her grandmother; Aine's dad was a nurse; and David's mom taught us Chinese customs and gave us chopsticks for Chinese New Year. My mom was a single parent. Differences, but-who cared?

High school was more difficult; we began to pull apart a bit, more balkanized by activities than race, although I did learn that it wasn't cool to be smart to some of the black kids at school- athletics were cooler. Band was so uncool as to render me largely invisible. But again, I had friends across the spectrum; fellow nerds in black and white, a tenuous alliance with tough black girls on drill team, and a huge crush on a cafe au lait boy whose ethnicity defied us for years. We called him Arab, Latin, mixed...turns out he was Dutch and Cruzian (St. Croix), by way of Aruba. OK...

But we all hung out, and danced to similar music mostly, and had similar goals. Yeah, there were only a few interracial couples around, but at the school for nerds, not that many people were dating at all. I even had a white, guy friend who, like me, thought all the race conflict we heard about (rarely saw) was stupid. When we'd pass each other in the hall, he'd yell loudly to me, "Whassup, Honky!" and I'd reply, "Wassup, Nigga!" Like smoking or getting pregnant, we thought being racist was just plain dumb. Culture was cool and being proud of your ancestry was awesome, but why waste time hating someone because they were lighter or darker than you? Dumb.

When I got to Cornell, I realized what I had been sheltered from. Vitriol and rhetoric of entitlement, violence and resentment, and this from kids who could buy and sell their way to a college degree! Here I was, this kid from Cincinnati, trying to sing Kuumbayah and hold hands, while the revolution started to televise itself. To say I wigged out is an understatement. I lived in the black dorm, had almost all black and brown friends (although they were Trinidadian and Nu-Jamaican and Puerto Rican), but I secretly penned a novel about two fish-out-of-water freshmen forging an interracial relationship amidst campus conflict and violence.

Coming home to Cincinnati didn't help. I was disappointed, angry, and scared; plus, I had discovered how hard dating was, and all the new rules that came along with sexual politics in America. I felt ugly and ostracized, from black men and white, and the only haven I had was the campus diversity organization, where freaks like me from all walks of life, countries, and colors came together, voluntarily, to talk about race and reconciliation (to be glib). I think RAPP (the last P is silent) saved my life. It turned me from an angry militant to a much more reasoned adult, no longer sheltered and naive, but also, not mad at the whole world for things outside my control.

Adulthood has largely been a mellowing period. I laugh at how little younger people think about race when forging friendships, but I cringed tonight when I saw a doe-eyed young black girl inviting a handsome white boy to her house for dinner. "Be careful!" my heart shouted, just in case... he wasn't as evolved as she. Projection? Hell yes. Rejection kills; disappointment only maims. Call me the Phantom of the Coffeehouse.

Anyway, to my heavy heart- Barack and America. Race and 2008. Resentment and anger. Halle Berry as the beautiful version of black women. Subprime borrowers getting a bailout vs. No Child Left Behind. And me, sitting alone in a coffeeshop, wishing I had some friends around me to tell me that it's gonna be ok. Because today...today, I wonder how the hell I'm gonna survive in Boulder.

Today has been a day of rants, but...I miss writing, and I miss hope. I had it; I guess I just misplaced it. Send me some if you see it, ok?