Barack Obama
Judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
There is a lot of hype about Barack Obama because of the belief that he might be "electable" and that he's "black". He might be the first "black" president.
There was this woman on the Colbert report who argued that Barack Obama is in fact not black because part of what black means is part of the post-slave culture of African Americans.
I think at some point we need to stop trying to boil down the human experience to anything but an individual experience and a community experience. Labels and categories won't ever truly work, except to teach the lesson of individualized experience. Now I'm not saying that we don't have things in common as humans or that there aren't similarities among humans, but humans don't belong to definitive categories usually. Someone who identifies themselves as a christian, may in a different mood or frame of mind more identify with being a woman perhaps despite having a penis.
We need to acknowledge the experiences that have taken place over the course of history, consider those experiences when deciding what to plan for the future and what to do in the present, but we must not dwell on what has taken place in the past so much that it defines the present.
One of Barack Obama's many hats is that of a politician. As such, I think he couldn't be happier than to ride the wave of sympathy from a culture he doesn't belong to.
I'm not against the notion of a dark-skinned person being president, I'm against the notion that the color of one's skin defines their experience as human and/or betters or worsens their ability to be president necessarily. There are many light-skinned people who identify much more with a "black" experience than many dark-skinned people. But what does it matter? Do you get it? We are talking about his skin color or his cultural experience!!! Try to discuss a bold initiative he's proposed. Try to discuss what he's going to do to improve the situation in the poor neighborhoods of our big cities. Try to discuss his ideas. Try to discuss the ideas of any candidate. Try to discuss anything beyond the labels of liberal and conservative or wacko or bible-thumper. Try if you can to move beyond the labels toward improving the level of happiness in our society.
There is a lot of hype about Barack Obama because of the belief that he might be "electable" and that he's "black". He might be the first "black" president.
There was this woman on the Colbert report who argued that Barack Obama is in fact not black because part of what black means is part of the post-slave culture of African Americans.
I think at some point we need to stop trying to boil down the human experience to anything but an individual experience and a community experience. Labels and categories won't ever truly work, except to teach the lesson of individualized experience. Now I'm not saying that we don't have things in common as humans or that there aren't similarities among humans, but humans don't belong to definitive categories usually. Someone who identifies themselves as a christian, may in a different mood or frame of mind more identify with being a woman perhaps despite having a penis.
We need to acknowledge the experiences that have taken place over the course of history, consider those experiences when deciding what to plan for the future and what to do in the present, but we must not dwell on what has taken place in the past so much that it defines the present.
One of Barack Obama's many hats is that of a politician. As such, I think he couldn't be happier than to ride the wave of sympathy from a culture he doesn't belong to.
I'm not against the notion of a dark-skinned person being president, I'm against the notion that the color of one's skin defines their experience as human and/or betters or worsens their ability to be president necessarily. There are many light-skinned people who identify much more with a "black" experience than many dark-skinned people. But what does it matter? Do you get it? We are talking about his skin color or his cultural experience!!! Try to discuss a bold initiative he's proposed. Try to discuss what he's going to do to improve the situation in the poor neighborhoods of our big cities. Try to discuss his ideas. Try to discuss the ideas of any candidate. Try to discuss anything beyond the labels of liberal and conservative or wacko or bible-thumper. Try if you can to move beyond the labels toward improving the level of happiness in our society.
posted by johnathlon at 12:01 AM
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