Period

© 14 May 2008, The Griot Poet

The best description of our dilemma was spent by the candidate’s “magnificent other,” to coin a phrase from the prophetic sage known as Rev G:

“Black America will wake up,” Michelle said. “We have a problem with self-esteem.”

It seems I hear that from the young – too young to recall Medgar Evers, Malcolm X or Dr. King except from a term paper essay assigned to them – or the old, that think “he’s too young and/or black” to run their country.

Somewhere in the middle are the intelligent white liberals, the educated black masses, the McGovern Democrats that pundits say can’t win: so, the political salvation of this nation is in the hands of – as his opponent has stated – white, uneducated, blue collar workers that can’t do the math on gas holidays?

Don’t let FOX-Y, MSNBC, 60 Minutes, CNN, and ABC (especially) or Disney, try to sell us on the notion that we are casting our vote because Barack is “black.”

Recall that at the outset, he wasn’t “black enough.” That he didn’t have the stuff of growing up in the south, in the ghetto, in the Civil Rights Movement, in the black church. That he was possibly a closet radical Muslim (an oxymoron), or the latest rift: the antichrist. See: www.bushisantichrist.com or your current bank account and wallet!

That he’d be the stuff of other candidates in the past like: Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Alan Keyes (Republican) and currently Cynthia McKinney for the Green Party – all show and no substance.

But his campaign has had the panache of seasoned veterans, the strength of gladiators and the grass roots organization that can only stem from immersion in Chicago politics.

So, please don’t let the news, owned by only eight media conglomerates that the only time African Americans are in the Board of Directors meetings are with Hispanics as janitors, that cheer about the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Wall Street and haven’t talked much about YOUR Main Street, that lecture us on the “good things outsourcing accomplishes,” which have ties to the military-industrial-Congressional-complex, that sanitize the lasting effects of the middle passage, slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination – Amadu Diallo and Sean Bell – that cheerlead us into a war in Iraq with no weapons of mass destruction present tell us that we are casting our vote because Barack is “black.”

Tell them to “step back.”

We’re casting it because like any American with sense, we’ve been convinced by his fundraising, his business acumen and his management style he can DO the job of president… period.