Obama's Birth Certificate--The Symbol Of A Nation Lost
Responding to a blog posting at a blog of a black journalist, I left the following comments regarding the today's presidential election.
But before I do that, let me say this.
We're in the end game. Today, 11/06/2012, marks the culmination of a long election season, and the potential end to the administration of this nation's first black President.
Today, I'm feeling a bit ambivalent, not about giving the president another four years, which he's earned, and more than likely will receive, to finish what he started almost four years ago, but how I now view this nation, and its people, after four turbulent years of a Democrat administration that saw an absolute obstructionism from those on the Right regarding anything this president sought to achieve--all towards the purpose of not giving him a "win" that he might use to advance his reelection, employing a single-mindedness that would be the envy of a Roman emperor, although the empire might suffer as a result, that empire being the United States.
Conflating those hostile years with the voter suppression we're seeing in key battleground states that even now is convulsing the voting process, my ambivalence has reached a new high, forcing me to reconsider how much, going forward, I'm willing to devote of my personal wherewithal--my energies, my time, and my tangible resources--to the continued welfare of this nation.
If that sounds negative and hyper-cynical, so be it. Perhaps I'll wait for a more fortuitous season, one where the values of democracy are better appreciated and generally prized, as they appear now to have undergone a throwback to a earlier time--a time that's all too familiar for its ruthlessness and racial animus.
Now to the comment I left on the blog, in response to some remarks that were made:
"I've seen so much anger, frustration, and hatred directed at Obama and Mitt Romney."
Clearly, I haven't seen all that you've seen, nor heard all that you've heard, but when it comes to the level--and amplitude--of "anger, frustration, and hatred directed at [the two candidates]," Obama wins that distinction hands down, not only during this election season, but for the better part of the four years he's been in office, remindful of ages gone by, where the niggerization of blacks was the national pastime.
"I'm pretty sure I can survive four years of Romney."
I can survive him, but I'm not sure that the nation can. Blacks, it's my belief, are watching this election closely, for the racial bellwether that it's becoming. Couple that with the voter suppression we're seeing in key battleground states, and you have in the making a total black disaffection--a turning of their collective back on this nation--a refusal to participate either in its economic growth, or in its survival as a superpower.
Black purchasing power is huge. In the future, blacks just might be more selective about where they put they money, and what they buy.
Whether Obama win or lose, the relationship between blacks and those in the majority will change appreciably--Republicans sought to steal this election and many whites on the Right stood by and watched it happen (finding justification for it), as well as some Republican blacks, notably Condi Rice, who lent her sizable reputation to Romney's bid for the White House, fully aware of the despicable tactics being used to effect that end.
To his credit, Colin Powell endorsed the president. Condi Rice, with her support of Romney, and thereby Republican policies and tactics, may be trying to land a key position in a RomRy administration, but those aspirations come at a high price--by trampling on her own people and failing to speak out against her party's contemptible treatment of this nation's first black president to realize those aspirations, will cause her, in the years ahead to lose a large chunk of black respect and black support.
Cable news is characterizing Romney's base as "hating" the black man in the White House--identifying the hatred as the key motivator driving them to the polls. What they're neglecting to tell you is just how angry black voters are, and blacks in general, as they watch the long lines at polling stations where early voting is allowed, but oftentimes at a reduction in hours and days, thanks to Republican state houses in swing states.
This suppression attempt--and the anger that ensued--will do more to mobilize black voters and bring them to the polls for President Obama (notwithstanding, standing in long lines for as long as it takes to vote), than it would have, had Republicans just allowed the voting process to go forward without the suppression.
They say that elephants have long memories. It's nothing compared to the memories of black Democratic donkeys that have been forced to eat the hay that the Right has served up liberally during Obama's tenure as president--and fairly recently in their effort to suppress the vote.
