After the morning after, after the night before . . .

[Moya]

I don't feel victorious. I don't feel like we won. I do think that these sentiments are particularly interesting after the early press spin that asked whether Barack was black enough and black people were ambivalent about the answer. Now he's one of us, our hero, our modern day Martin and Malcolm (please people let's really think about what these men did and who they were i.e. not politicians).

A friend's brother said that he's seen more racism on the internet in the last few days than in his whole millennial life, which is interesting in the wake of claims that Obama's win symbolizes a new epoch in racial relations in this country. What I see is power and hegemony at work. The election of a brown face that keeps the capitalist machine going, (not an uncle tom Nader; they all placate those corporations) albeit it a gentler, greener machine (we've been promised) that still does the work of US imperialism.

I wonder how our Indigenous brothers and sisters feel? Is it enthusiasm for the fact that a person of color has reached the white house or is it sadness that a person of color is at the helm of an empire that wrought such pain and destruction among their peoples?

I say person of color deliberately to note that Obama's African American-ness exist in another space than that of other African American's who have sought the nation's highest office (Chisolm, Jackson, McKinney, etc.). He is not marked with the north/south black/white paradigmatic binary we use to understand race in this country. He is not colored by the hallmarks of African American elite society like belonging to a Divine Nine fraternity or growing up in Jack & Jill. His Hawaiian, Midwest upbringing make him an exception to dominate codes of blackness which initially made black people suspicious and ultimately put whites at ease.

It was easier for me when the face of U.S. imperialism didn't look like mine. Will this stem the radical left's radicalness? Will we become complacent because Obama is the new president of the fundamentally illegal, stolen, and pilfered United States? I am worried because as bougie black folk celebrate and rejoice, there are still black people hurting. The "tragedy" in Jennifer Hudson's family captures national attention, even presidential (now) condolences, but how often is that story true for countless other black families living in this country and how often is that story told as one of tragedy rather than a rationalization of stereotypes long held about the black urban poor? Structural racism depends on the exceptions (Obama, Oprah, etc.) to hide the rule that is inequity.

Am I cynical for feeling ambivalent in this moment? I dare not share these thoughts with too many because the retribution is swift. There is no room for quirky black girls casting aspersions at this watershed moment in black history. But I must insist on raising my dis-ease in this moment, my fear for what this may seemingly absolve in the minds of many. And also what might it incite? "Disempowered racist white people can only actually harm people much less powerful than the president elect."

So I pledge to stay vigilant, critical and skeptical. I pledge also to be active, visible, and hopeful for the world I wish to see. It will take more than one man's rise to power to undo centuries old structural oppressions built along the axes of race, gender, sexuality, ability and age. The struggle continues.

Thanks to Summer M., Alexis P., and Ashon C. for helping me think on this and providing pieces of this analysis.

[summer m.]

"Black Like Me"

"[S]o in a few thousand years, I who regard you will also have sprung from the loins of African kings.” -- William Faulkner

I love black people. I love to see them happy. I especially love to see them happy about things other than, I don't know, rims and Tyler Perry movies. But my joy at black people's overwhelming happiness on election night was tempered, and nearly destroyed by a distraught sadness that even my apathetic cynicism cannot render obscure. I am sad for myself; I am sad black people.

I make no argument that what happened on the night of November 4, 2008 wasn't historic. It was. We should be elated that we--and the world-- survived eight years of the Bush Administration. We should be relieved that we endured over twenty months of campaigning. And yes, we should celebrate the fact that a person of color has somehow found a way to become the leader of the so-called Free World. Then again, it's this last point that troubles me.

As I watched journalists interview countless black people--both famous and not--about the significance of this moment, my disbelief and furious inner-critic could not be quelled. I wondered: Why are we celebrating? What are we so happy about? Why do some of us tearfully utter that we've [finally] overcome? That the Promised Land is in sight--and this time our view isn't a picture of Oprah's southern California estate courtesy of Google images? As friends have noted, the moment was as if the resounding, "Not guilty," coming from a Los Angeles Courthouse one Tuesday morning in 1995 had been heard again; except this time, there were a few white people dancing in the streets, too.

I'm sad for black people. I'm sad because we can be so forgiving, and willfully forget how Obama became President-elect. That one essential element of his campaign was to stand atop and juxtapose himself against some of the same kinds of black folks who celebrated his victory as if he were a son, a brother. We forget that we had to wait until white Iowans validated his candidacy, as if they were saying, "It's all right this time. We like this [or is it that?] one. Go ahead. Dream," to shift our support from Clinton to him. That Obama disavowed his minister and spiritual mentor when semantically exagerrated portions of several sermons were leaked, allowed those views to be considered racist, and thereby implicitly suggested that maybe part of the motivation to join that church was to gain footing in the Chicago's southside black community. And even though most of those black people in the streets celebrating the outcome of this election didn't think there was much wrong with what had been said, this Reverend Wright, this old crazy uncle became expendable because he made too many white people uncomfortable.

I'm sad because his wife--and I think she's incredible-- had to make a speech to prove herself safe enough, and not bitter. And she still got called a black militant in the process. Satirically, of course. (No, I don't know why the caged bird sings, but I do know why they send a canary into a mine.) I'm sad because Obama felt it necessary, with cameras rolling for whites to see and nod in approval, to chastise black parenting, to suggest that they voluntarily feed their children Popeye's for breakfast, as if the McDonald's or the liquor store across the street is a better alternative. As if they make these children sit at home and watch television rather than subject them to the danger of these streets. (I have police cameras on my block because a young black girl was shot and killed on the playground.) I'm sad because he allowed black pathology to be regarded as an ideological position, and somehow the creation of blacks. And I'm sad because the people he maligned then, are the people he ignored especially in the latter part of his campaign: Sure, you want to reaffirm the middle class, but what about poor people? Or are they expendable, too?

I'm sad. I'm sad because on election night, a tearful Roland Martin pointed out that 100 years ago (roughly), the NAACP was founded and now the United States was electing a black president. As if the NAACP, CORE, any black organization or leader or person had only existed to put a brown face at the head of this nation. As if Obama hadn't garnered the national spotlight in 2004 by denying the existence of Black America, only for some of us, a mere four years later, to celebrate his victory by singing the national anthem of this non-existent entity. But he's Joshua, right? I'm sad because in order to be happy, to find joy in a system that continually jeopardizes our tenuous citizenship, we must suspend our critiques to celebrate and defend "Close enough."

I'm sad because this moment affirms for me, not that any black person with the will and desire can be president, but rather that any black person can't be president. Could Obama have become President-elect with his wife's geographical origins? Or mine? Or yours? Riddle me this: if Barack Obama had been born in the summer of 1961 not in Hawaii, but in Oakland, CA, would he be here? I venture to suggest no. For if he had, he might have made the mistake of living too close to Black Panthers' headquarters, and accidentally eating one of their free breakfasts on his way to kindergarten.

Could he have become President-elect had his father been an American? His mother black? If he had been raised by grandparents who look like those who raise so many black children? If he'd not had the auspicious luck of being born on an island in the middle of the ocean, and not on a continent, a terrain trod with racism and the fight against it? Understand me, this is no fault of Obama's. Yet if these are the essential ingredients in creating a serious black presidential candidate (and at this juncture, I'm not sure I can believe they're not. Recall: the only other "viable" potential black candidate in recent memory has been Colin Powell, and he's also light-skinned and the child of Jamaican immigrants.) how many young black boys and girls can replicate that kind of chance? What American Negro can replicate the exceptionalism that assuaged Obama to whites? This is not an argument that Obama isn't black. He is. But he's a special kind of black. As a friend and I like to say, an "Accented Negro," slightly--and just enough-- different from the rest of us. Just enough to make enough white folks to feel better; just enough for us to celebrate you anyway.

And what are we happy about? What are we celebrating? That this brand of American Imperialism will be brought to you by a melanined face? For nothing in Mr. President-elect's foreign policy makes me believe that American occupation in other countries is over, just a bit nicer and served to you with a smile. Sure, whatever he does will be a change from the Bush Doctrine, but how hard is that? Won't poor black and brown folks continue to be deployed, only to return with no options? That is, if they are not already incarcerated in our for-profit prisons? Because you can't become president without making white people feel safe. And unfortunately, that safety stems from keeping the hometown persons of color from rioting, and the away team persons of color at bay.

So, what are we crying tears of joy for? I woke up this morning, and I know it's still hard to be black. And it's still hard to be Muslim--or at least look it.

I'm sad because I can't help but rain on black people's parade.

Hold on, my people. Please.

[Moya]

Thanks Summer for your incisive commentary. What you think Alexis thinks about the election in this pic?

[Naturally Alise]

I think cynicism is necessary at some point, but I do find that a lot of folks do tend to ruin a moment of pride or milestones with over analyzing. Are you not proud of the accomplishment on some level? Yes, the points you made are completely valid, but can a sister get a week to be celebratory? I know this may sound like a simplistic analysis, but I really have gotten my joy stolen all week long.

[Moody Gremlin]

piggybacking off of Naturally Alise,
i think cynicism is a self defence mechanism for those who cant deal with disappointment and who have been let down so many times in their life that they are afriad to trust or believe in anyone or anything. their heart got broke and they never recovered.

i used to be one so i'm talking from the mending heart

[Moya]

not at all simplistic sis! not trying to steal joy just trying to explain my own unaffected disposition. I didn't even know there were others who really felt that way besides Summer. The media I've been seeing is all celebratory. I was def. feeling in the corner on this.

Tiha- totally agree with your cynical definition. I think i'm an ubber optimist and i'm just hopeful for something more, for the momentum to remain.

Naturally Alise said:

I think cynicism is necessary at some point, but I do find that a lot of folks do tend to ruin a moment of pride or milestones with over analyzing. Are you not proud of the accomplishment on some level? Yes, the points you made are completely valid, but can a sister get a week to be celebratory? I know this may sound like a simplistic analysis, but I really have gotten my joy stolen all week long.

[maia]

i didnt vote. i never vote.
i guess i am of two minds...but them i am usually of two (or more) minds. the day of the election, i went to arabic class. my teacher had scheduled the class an hour earlier than usual because he wanted to get to grant park in time in order to celebrate obama's victory. i was kind of surprised. he grew up in gaza, studied at bir zeit in the west bank and obama is very pro-israel. now, obama's position on israel has not gotten alot of press, but frankly, when he announced that he believed in an undivided jerusalem, i was pissed. let me unpack the phrase 'undivided jerusalem' for a moment. jerusalem at the moment is one of the most contested pieces of real estate in the world. the israeli government has built large israeli settlements surrounding jerusalem in order to make the 'facts on the ground' that all of jerusalem and the land surrounding jerusalem belongs to israel. at the moment there is west jerusalem (israel) and east jerusalem (palestinian) and then surrounding east jerusalem massive israeli settlements that block east jerusalem palestinians from being able to reach the rest of the west bank without going through a series of military checkpoints. it can take hours to travel ten miles to the nearest city in the west bank. i am not talking about abstract people, or dots on a map, i am talking about my friends that can't go see their family or their family land (if the israelis havent already confiscated that family land for israeli settlements).
on the other hand (the other mind) i think about my daughter. my little biracial daughter who is seriously going to grow up thinking that it was the olden days when a person of color could not lead the empire. she is going to shrug her shoulders and be like: whatev, mom. the way that i used to be when my mom used to tell me stories about integrating her high school in rural south carolina. when i was a teenager, in my (integrated) high school i told everyone that i planned to become president of the usa. i wanted to change the world and the presidency seemed like the instrument to use. i would tell people that i refused to say the pledge of allegiance (it was required that everyone in the school stand for the pledge every morning...welcome to virginia) until racism ended in the usa. a fellow student asked me how was i going to be president of the usa if i wasnt willing to say the pledge...and my lil 13 year old self quipped...well when i am president then obviously racism will have ended! in that school i was considered really radical for thinking that i (a geeky lil black girl) could be president.
and now obama's first announcement post-election is rahm israel emanuel as chief of staff. this guy is part of the clinton circles, and even back then he was considered to be a conservative, hard-line pro-israel guy. this aint good. this is more than not good.
but most palestinians i know celebrate obama as president more than i do.
i was watching nbc when they called the election for obama. and i gasped. and all i could say was: omigod. omigod. omigod. the empire is about to get really smart. the empire will no longer be a blundering instrument setting fires it can't manage, its world image spiraling into idiocy. the empire is about to become ( to paraphrase obama) a scalpel and not a hatchet. and that aint better. an empire more intelligent and effective about achieving its goals, is 'change we can believe in', it just not change that i want at all.
did i mention the couple of tears that rolled when nbc made its announcement? and how silly i felt about those tears? i can't tell if they were happy or sad ones.
but that evening, for a 'moment', i started twirling around my empty apartment, lost in my own dream of what it could mean if there was such a thing as 'black privilege'. i know. i know. but, what if when i traveled, or just walked through my neighborhood, people saw me and saw world power. it was a heady feeling. not one i was comfortable with. more like i was dizzy with. it was like the flobots song: handlebars. and i realized that i had never associated this feeling with 'freedom' or 'power'. and that white folks and i lived in really different worlds, with really different definitions of words.
so in the end of this election, i guess i stand where i started. its like ive been saying for years...i have given up alot of my hopes for what a president should or should not do. i just want a president who can pronounce the names of the leaders of the countries he is screwing over. check. i just want a president who won't bomb a country until he can find that country on a map. check. and frankly, i want a good looking prez, if i got to listen to them for the next few years, let me at least be able to turn the sound down and enjoy. check.
by the time i left high school i decided i wanted to be an artist not a politician. and when i look at obama i made the right choice.
why didnt i vote? because i dont believe in nation-states. and there is no vote that i can cast (not even a write-in one) that says: our country cannot should not exist. do not talk to me about what my people died for in order that i could vote...fighting for the vote was a tactic, not the strategy. and it is the sad fact that folks do not understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy, between a symbol and a goal, a figurehead and a mountaintop that makes me ambivalent.

[Moya]

Damn Maia. Your post is like whoa!!!! Ashe, Ashe, Ashe!!!!

Thanks sis for your thoughts!!!

maia said:

i didnt vote. i never vote.
i guess i am of two minds...but them i am usually of two (or more) minds. the day of the election, i went to arabic class. my teacher had scheduled the class an hour earlier than usual because he wanted to get to grant park in time in order to celebrate obama's victory. i was kind of surprised. he grew up in gaza, studied at bir zeit in the west bank and obama is very pro-israel. now, obama's position on israel has not gotten alot of press, but frankly, when he announced that he believed in an undivided jerusalem, i was pissed. let me unpack the phrase 'undivided jerusalem' for a moment. jerusalem at the moment is one of the most contested pieces of real estate in the world. the israeli government has built large israeli settlements surrounding jerusalem in order to make the 'facts on the ground' that all of jerusalem and the land surrounding jerusalem belongs to israel. at the moment there is west jerusalem (israel) and east jerusalem (palestinian) and then surrounding east jerusalem massive israeli settlements that block east jerusalem palestinians from being able to reach the rest of the west bank without going through a series of military checkpoints. it can take hours to travel ten miles to the nearest city in the west bank. i am not talking about abstract people, or dots on a map, i am talking about my friends that can't go see their family or their family land (if the israelis havent already confiscated that family land for israeli settlements).
on the other hand (the other mind) i think about my daughter. my little biracial daughter who is seriously going to grow up thinking that it was the olden days when a person of color could not lead the empire. she is going to shrug her shoulders and be like: whatev, mom. the way that i used to be when my mom used to tell me stories about integrating her high school in rural south carolina. when i was a teenager, in my (integrated) high school i told everyone that i planned to become president of the usa. i wanted to change the world and the presidency seemed like the instrument to use. i would tell people that i refused to say the pledge of allegiance (it was required that everyone in the school stand for the pledge every morning...welcome to virginia) until racism ended in the usa. a fellow student asked me how was i going to be president of the usa if i wasnt willing to say the pledge...and my lil 13 year old self quipped...well when i am president then obviously racism will have ended! in that school i was considered really radical for thinking that i (a geeky lil black girl) could be president.
and now obama's first announcement post-election is rahm israel emanuel as chief of staff. this guy is part of the clinton circles, and even back then he was considered to be a conservative, hard-line pro-israel guy. this aint good. this is more than not good.
but most palestinians i know celebrate obama as president more than i do.
i was watching nbc when they called the election for obama. and i gasped. and all i could say was: omigod. omigod. omigod. the empire is about to get really smart. the empire will no longer be a blundering instrument setting fires it can't manage, its world image spiraling into idiocy. the empire is about to become ( to paraphrase obama) a scalpel and not a hatchet. and that aint better. an empire more intelligent and effective about achieving its goals, is 'change we can believe in', it just not change that i want at all.
did i mention the couple of tears that rolled when nbc made its announcement? and how silly i felt about those tears? i can't tell if they were happy or sad ones.
but that evening, for a 'moment', i started twirling around my empty apartment, lost in my own dream of what it could mean if there was such a thing as 'black privilege'. i know. i know. but, what if when i traveled, or just walked through my neighborhood, people saw me and saw world power. it was a heady feeling. not one i was comfortable with. more like i was dizzy with. it was like the flobots song: handlebars. and i realized that i had never associated this feeling with 'freedom' or 'power'. and that white folks and i lived in really different worlds, with really different definitions of words.
so in the end of this election, i guess i stand where i started. its like ive been saying for years...i have given up alot of my hopes for what a president should or should not do. i just want a president who can pronounce the names of the leaders of the countries he is screwing over. check. i just want a president who won't bomb a country until he can find that country on a map. check. and frankly, i want a good looking prez, if i got to listen to them for the next few years, let me at least be able to turn the sound down and enjoy. check.
by the time i left high school i decided i wanted to be an artist not a politician. and when i look at obama i made the right choice.
why didnt i vote? because i dont believe in nation-states. and there is no vote that i can cast (not even a write-in one) that says: our country cannot should not exist. do not talk to me about what my people died for in order that i could vote...fighting for the vote was a tactic, not the strategy. and it is the sad fact that folks do not understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy, between a symbol and a goal, a figurehead and a mountaintop that makes me ambivalent.

[summer m.]

word. this right here is so real. and so necessary. we gotta get this stuff out to folks who aren't members of our choir. well, i guess we're just a trio.


maia said:

i didnt vote. i never vote.
i guess i am of two minds...but them i am usually of two (or more) minds. the day of the election, i went to arabic class. my teacher had scheduled the class an hour earlier than usual because he wanted to get to grant park in time in order to celebrate obama's victory. i was kind of surprised. he grew up in gaza, studied at bir zeit in the west bank and obama is very pro-israel. now, obama's position on israel has not gotten alot of press, but frankly, when he announced that he believed in an undivided jerusalem, i was pissed. let me unpack the phrase 'undivided jerusalem' for a moment. jerusalem at the moment is one of the most contested pieces of real estate in the world. the israeli government has built large israeli settlements surrounding jerusalem in order to make the 'facts on the ground' that all of jerusalem and the land surrounding jerusalem belongs to israel. at the moment there is west jerusalem (israel) and east jerusalem (palestinian) and then surrounding east jerusalem massive israeli settlements that block east jerusalem palestinians from being able to reach the rest of the west bank without going through a series of military checkpoints. it can take hours to travel ten miles to the nearest city in the west bank. i am not talking about abstract people, or dots on a map, i am talking about my friends that can't go see their family or their family land (if the israelis havent already confiscated that family land for israeli settlements).
on the other hand (the other mind) i think about my daughter. my little biracial daughter who is seriously going to grow up thinking that it was the olden days when a person of color could not lead the empire. she is going to shrug her shoulders and be like: whatev, mom. the way that i used to be when my mom used to tell me stories about integrating her high school in rural south carolina. when i was a teenager, in my (integrated) high school i told everyone that i planned to become president of the usa. i wanted to change the world and the presidency seemed like the instrument to use. i would tell people that i refused to say the pledge of allegiance (it was required that everyone in the school stand for the pledge every morning...welcome to virginia) until racism ended in the usa. a fellow student asked me how was i going to be president of the usa if i wasnt willing to say the pledge...and my lil 13 year old self quipped...well when i am president then obviously racism will have ended! in that school i was considered really radical for thinking that i (a geeky lil black girl) could be president.
and now obama's first announcement post-election is rahm israel emanuel as chief of staff. this guy is part of the clinton circles, and even back then he was considered to be a conservative, hard-line pro-israel guy. this aint good. this is more than not good.
but most palestinians i know celebrate obama as president more than i do.
i was watching nbc when they called the election for obama. and i gasped. and all i could say was: omigod. omigod. omigod. the empire is about to get really smart. the empire will no longer be a blundering instrument setting fires it can't manage, its world image spiraling into idiocy. the empire is about to become ( to paraphrase obama) a scalpel and not a hatchet. and that aint better. an empire more intelligent and effective about achieving its goals, is 'change we can believe in', it just not change that i want at all.
did i mention the couple of tears that rolled when nbc made its announcement? and how silly i felt about those tears? i can't tell if they were happy or sad ones.
but that evening, for a 'moment', i started twirling around my empty apartment, lost in my own dream of what it could mean if there was such a thing as 'black privilege'. i know. i know. but, what if when i traveled, or just walked through my neighborhood, people saw me and saw world power. it was a heady feeling. not one i was comfortable with. more like i was dizzy with. it was like the flobots song: handlebars. and i realized that i had never associated this feeling with 'freedom' or 'power'. and that white folks and i lived in really different worlds, with really different definitions of words.
so in the end of this election, i guess i stand where i started. its like ive been saying for years...i have given up alot of my hopes for what a president should or should not do. i just want a president who can pronounce the names of the leaders of the countries he is screwing over. check. i just want a president who won't bomb a country until he can find that country on a map. check. and frankly, i want a good looking prez, if i got to listen to them for the next few years, let me at least be able to turn the sound down and enjoy. check.
by the time i left high school i decided i wanted to be an artist not a politician. and when i look at obama i made the right choice.
why didnt i vote? because i dont believe in nation-states. and there is no vote that i can cast (not even a write-in one) that says: our country cannot should not exist. do not talk to me about what my people died for in order that i could vote...fighting for the vote was a tactic, not the strategy. and it is the sad fact that folks do not understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy, between a symbol and a goal, a figurehead and a mountaintop that makes me ambivalent.

[Moya]

Mark Anthony Neal and Young Jeezy on NPR

[summer m.]

i "like" how neal "justified" obama's lack of acknowledgment, or how he really say much about the fact that obama would prolly chastise the likes of jeezy. or did i miss it?

Moya said:

Mark Anthony Neal and Young Jeezy on NPR

[Moya]

nah you ain't miss nothin'

summer m. said:

i "like" how neal "justified" obama's lack of acknowledgment, or how he really say much about the fact that obama would prolly chastise the likes of jeezy. or did i miss it?

Moya said:

Mark Anthony Neal and Young Jeezy on NPR

[Kismet]

I want to honor the critique and the analysis offered here.

I don't agree with most of it. But I appreciate that this kind of conversation can go on, can go on with love, and can be expressed without personal rancor. WHEW!!! I love it so much!

And my thoughts are so complicated right now I'm not even sure how to unfold my differences here. I will try to toss out some thoughts I had as I read.

I will say that for myself, it his election was a triumph and a success. Not just for people of African descent, black people, (not just African-American) but because this election was the closest I've ever seen a presidential campaign come to grassroots organizing. Of a major party that is. I think that Obama's "African-American" experience is frustrating for me, who is African-American and Puerto Rican, who identifies as both, who grew up having to learn African-American culture but with the obvious assumption in my person (from all colors: black, white and Latina/o) that I was black. From my view of history, I am not connected to hbcus, Jack and Jill, Baptist churches or southern slavery in the visceral way that I think that some black women in the U.S. are. And I respect that experience, honor it, sometimes wish for it as a way to anchor myself in this space we call the U.S. But I also appreciate that Obama's more complicated experience could also be in this space, that the more black African American people I meet, the less I see them fitting the mold--they grew up in cities, indifferent to the South; they traveled most of their lives, they were army brats, they went to international boarding school; they are of mixed-race and self-identify black but honor their mothers--the same way I do. And Obama does. And while i recognize that has been the dominant meme of African American history and life for men adn women--I have to say it is refreshing that Obama's candidacy brought into a discussion a much more complex picture that DID NOT end in mixed race/mestizo/happy to be grey/feel good im neither one nor another foolishness. It ended in a, "And still. I am black. Game over." I liked that because that is how I feel at the end of the day. And because he embodied those contradictions and that end result--that end that still honors above all the African-American/roots in slavery/the South/etc. After all--what choice do brown skinned people really have?

I did not believe in the McKinney-Clemente ticket although I can understand and respect how so many of my friends and sisters in the struggle did believe in it. I think it was a foil by a third party to try to play identity politics and garner votes. And I wish two women I respect and admire hadn't played into it. I think Nader is an ass. (and if you are a Nader support, I apologize, but his last comments that I think someone linked to above, just reinforced for me that he is demonstrative of the worst kinds of privilege). I especially can understand those who supported her because Obama-Biden ticket was centrist-liberal. They never tried to pretend they were anything but,

I love Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama is also a grown woman who knew exactly what she was doing when she changed her game up. And while I hate that social convention put her in that position, I also honor her because I see in her decisions the same decisions that I, my mother, my grandmother, my linesisters, etc. have to make every single day. In that, I identified with that symbolic work she did and I guess I am pressing myself to respect her agency in that. Because I have respect my mother's agency in those decisions as well.

I don't think it is overanalyzing to have these conversations. Critique, dissent--that is how we grow. I do think it is safe to take that moment to bask, though. And then we roll up our sleeves and get to the business. On stuff like damn f&*ing prop 8. I think this should be a space where we can do both--we can analyze overly :) and we can also celebrate. Because I DO want to celebrate and dance and shout and cry even now. And I recognize the revolution ain't over, barely started even 500 years later. But its these battles, small in the long run but so important, important, important to honor, these battles that are won that help us keep going. Even when they are contradictory. There were plenty of contradictory things about emancipation, about Sojourner Truth's suffrage work, about desegregating schools, and about establishing women studies programs. But that doesn't make those things less of a triumph. AT least, I don't happen to feel it does.

I want to close this with LOVE again and say that I'm really glad to have you all in my life. Happy Sunday!