Obamaholics, I was wrong

may I eat chicken instead of crow?



Your boy did it, and no one in A-merry-ca is as surprised as I am. Hopefully the real A-merry-ca showed up tonight, and if it was the real A-merry-ca, it's a country that I can say that I am proud to live in. Blacks, Whites, Gays, Asians and Latinos; all of you Obamaholics who stepped up and volunteered with your sweat and tears deserve to be sitting right on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with his O ness. This is your election victory. You could have sat back on your ass like this cynical blogger and say it couldn't happen, but you didn't. You could have said, like this cynical blogger, that A-merry-ca was not ready to elect a black man with a Muslim* name, but you didn't. Instead, you believed, and you started a movement. A movement which will make A-merry-ca a better place for all of us.

I will leave you with some comments that were left on this blog which moved me to tears today:

"I Didn't Vote For Obama Today I have a confession to make. I did not vote for Barack Obama today. I've openly supported Obama since March. But I didn't vote for him today.I wanted to vote for Ronald Woods. He was my algebra teacher at Clark Junior High in East St. Louis, IL. He died 15 years ago when his truck skidded head-first into a utility pole. He spent many a day teaching us many things besides the Pythagorean Theorem. He taught us about Medgar Evers, Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis and many other civil rights figures who get lost in the shadow cast by Martin Luther King, Jr.But I didn't vote for Mr. Woods.I wanted to vote for Willie Mae Cross. She owned and operated Crossroads Preparatory Academy for almost 30 years, educating and empowering thousands of kids before her death in 2003. I was her first student. She gave me my first job, teaching chess and math concepts to kids in grades K-4 in her summer program. She was always there for advice, cheer and consolation. Ms. Cross, in her own way, taught me more about walking in faith than anyone else I ever knew.

But I didn't vote for Ms. Cross. I wanted to vote for Arthur Mells Jackson, Sr. and Jr. Jackson Senior was a Latin professor. He has a gifted school named for him in my hometown. Jackson Junior was the pre-eminent physician in my hometown for over 30 years. He has a heliport named for him at a hospital in my hometown. They were my great-grandfather and great-uncle, respectively.But I didn't vote for Prof. Jackson or Dr. Jackson.I wanted to vote for A.B. Palmer. She was a leading civil rights figure in Shreveport, Louisiana, where my mother grew up and where I still have dozens of family members. She was a strong-willed woman who earned the grudging respect of the town's leaders because she never, ever backed down from anyone and always gave better than she got. She lived to the ripe old age of 99, and has a community center named for her in Shreveport.

But I didn't vote for Mrs. Palmer.I wanted to vote for these people, who did not live to see a day where a Black man would appear on their ballots on a crisp November morning.In the end, though, I realized that I could not vote for them any more than I could vote for Obama himself. So who did I vote for?No one.I didn't vote. Not for President, anyway. Oh, I went to the voting booth. I signed, was given my stub, and was walked over to a voting machine. I cast votes for statewide races and a state referendum on water and sewer improvements.I stood there, and I thought about all of these people, who influenced my life so greatly. But I didn't vote for who would be the 44th President of the United States.When my ballot was complete, except for the top line, I finally decided who I was going to vote for - and then decided to let him vote for me. I reached down, picked him up, and told him to find Obama's name on the screen and touch it.And so it came to pass that Alexander Reed, age 5, read the voting screen, found the right candidate, touched his name, and actually cast a vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.Oh, the vote will be recorded as mine. But I didn't cast it.

Then again, the person who actually pressed the Obama box and the red "vote" button was the person I was really voting for all along. It made the months of donating, phone banking, canvassing, door hanger distributing, sign posting, blogging, arguing and persuading so much sweeter. So, no, I didn't vote for Barack Obama. I voted for a boy who now has every reason to believe he, too, can grow up to be anything he wants...even President."





~~~Mrs. Reed~~~


Damn it, I think I am crying again.


BTW, I hope you folks like my little virtual Broad Street run (thank you ArtMaggot) it might be the only running I will do for awhile.........alright, alright, I won't be a wimp, I will think about the run, and I will post it.

Link here.

"The last angry black man"

A friend of mine was introducing me to someone today, and for some reason he felt the need to tell her that I blog. "He has a blog called field Negro. I think he is the last angry black man left in America." Ha ha ha ha, laughs all around.

Of course dude was right. At times it seems that there are no angry black men left in A-merry-ca. I think the angry black man has been ashamed into accepting his fate, and his place in the A-merry-can scheme of things. But there is nothing to be ashamed of. Not when your anger is driven by disappointment and not resentment. You see it's like this: most people think that the angry black man, like yours truly, is angry because he is somehow feeling left out and is disappointed with his station in life. While this might be true with some angry black men, it isn't the case here. (Although to be honest, I couldn't really blame any black man for being angry and pissed off for the state of his condition. The shit that some of us -and yes I say us because whatever that black man goes through effects me as well-go through, I wouldn't wish on my worst white enemy). I am quite happy with pretty much all aspects of my life, both socially and professionally, but I am still angry.

Seeing untapped potential and squandered opportunities makes me angry. You can't live in a city like Philadelphia and see all the urban decay and hopelessness in the greatest country on earth and not be angry. You can't look into the face of some of the beautiful children here, knowing that they have no shot in life, and not be angry. You can't see all the money at our government's disposal being wasted on bullshit, while people are struggling to make ends meet and not get angry. All that shit makes me angry and will continue to until the people with real power in this country act like they give a damn.

Of course there used to be lots of angry black men in A-merry-ca. The Black Panthers were angry. Hell they had to be, their survival depended on it. Some of our politicians from back in the day (Shirley Chisholm comes to mind) who really cared about our condition as a people were angry. There are no angry labor organizers like Cesar Chavez anymore. No angry social activist even. Why? Because A-merry-ca has moved forward, we have gotten past the little problems of race, and class, and poverty(did you hear Tim Russert). And everyone has a chance of achieving the American dream now...yeah right! Jim Brown was an angry athlete, that's why he ran like that; he ran with anger. Malcolm X was angry. He was angry at A-merry-ca, his own people, and even at his mentor.

Boy it sure would be nice to have some high profile angry black men in A-merry-ca. But we know how that is, it will never happen now. Money and independent wealth does wonders for that ailment known as the angry black man's decease. Now, instead of real anger, we have been given Barack, and Tiger as our modern day black icons. And they ain't angry. In fact, Barack is trying to unify A-merry-ca, and Tiger is trying to pretend he is not black. People making lynching jokes about Tiger won't make him angry, and instead of getting angry at the political process in A-merry-ca, Barack praises the fake ass cowboy from California.

People like Mrs. Field are always getting on me about my anger. I am called an ABM (her abbreviation for Angry Black Man) damn near every day I am maneuvering through Philly traffic. She wonders where it comes from. If she only had half of the things I did growing up, most people black and white could only wish they had it so good. Well....I hate to break it to Mrs. Field, but as I said before, this anger isn't about envy or victimology, it's about disappointment. And when your anger is fueled by things other than your physical condition or your station in life, what you have or don't have as an individual is irrelevant. It's about the collective, and what is being done to the people in the world that looks like you. It's about our apathy to it while we party and play our lives away. It's about turning our backs on an entire generation of our children, and not having the discipline to raise our families in the proper way. Yep, all this shit makes me angry, and if I ever stop being angry, I won't even know myself.