I'll be honest. I've made it a point not to get caught up in the daily election coverage, not to have my first thoughts of the day be influenced by the always timely blog posts by a former schoolmate of mine who seems to be studying this election as if his Final Jeopardy is going to come from it. Why might you ask? Because it would only serve to drive me crazy.
I've decided to be ignorant in this Zen kind of way, hoping and praying that it all doesn't play out exactly the way it feels like it's going to. But even in my forced hibernation from all things Clinton and Obama, I know all too much about Jeremiah Wright, a man who is using Obama as a pair of shoulders to stand on so that he can kick knowledge to both the choir and the people most capable of twisting his every word into another excuse as to why we should never have a nigger in the White House.
Now I'm sure there are some of you that will disagree with me. I've read enough about Wright and actually took the time to check out what I could find on him on Youtube and other outlets. On one level, based on what I have seen and read, I would have no shame in being a member of Wright's congregation. But on the other hand he's been a fly in the ointment for the Obama campaign at the times when they needed it least. And it's his own ego and the Obama campaign's lack of foresight that sooner or later "They" would find something on tape to serve as proof that an Obama White House would be nothing but four to eight years of getting back whitey for all the shit he did to us. Hilary and McCain have both benefited from this already. And there's no telling what the right kind of investigators will continue to find as they look into the backgrounds of Wright and his associates.
I don't know why but as the years have gone on I've found myself less and less engaged in the meanderings of the American Way. Let's be truthful. When was the last time the U.S. government really ran this country? If has always been private interest that has shone their black light on the face of everything from jurisprudence to foreign trade. State of the Union speeches and photo ops are what makes us feel like things are getting done. But in my estimation there are far bigger things going on beneath the surface of all of this, things that deal with an invisible war that's being waged between folks in the world who want the human race to make it to the next millennium and those of us who either live in fear of having their bank balance fall below seven figures and those who would rather keep their eyes shut and let a few old and privileged white men do the seeing for them.
As I try to focus on what I can control, doing anything beyond taking a stand for what me and mines believe in and expressing those sentiments through the gifts God gave me, getting too involved in an election like this seems like waste of time for me. Black folks en masse are once again holding on to the same Moses mentality that was used to enslave us when we first got here, plain and simple.
None of these words are a reflection on any dislike or distrust I have in Obama as a presidential candidate. For one, he's new blood, which means that he's yet to be tainted by the river of filth that is present-day politics. For two, he shocked the world when he grabbed that Senate seat in the first place. And ever since those of us with half a brain (that number is decreasing and not increasing mind you) have expected great thing from him. I'll admit that even I am surprised by how far he's gotten and I wanted to see him sitting in that chair for the first State of the Union address of '09. I want that just as bad as I want Keri Hilson in my bedroom by candlelight. But in this climate, in this century, I'm not so sure.
It's funny to me that Wright has seemingly been the best thing the opposition could come up with post the Clinton-camps lame and continued failures to sling mud pies at the Kenyan from Illinois. But that doesn't mean that he won't cost our boy some yards in the game.
More importantly I keep thinking that a cat like Obama could do so much more good by doing something else entirely. His work in Chicago alone makes me wonder what he could achieve at the helm or a larger nonprofit or by the Jimmy Carter thing or whatever. We've got some ugly years ahead, years that every network has chosen to paint its own color of choice. For me, I see some harsh times, times filled with the destruction and violence that will topple this Rome so that some folks with better sense can rebuild it again, though I'm not sure if I'll be on this soil long enough to see it happen.
My friend Seda said something to me one night a few months back. She reminded me that I may have seen or known about all kinds of violence in the hood. But that's nothing in comparison to being on the street when a bomb goes off in a cafe, or when rival factions decide to shoot it out with innocent bystanders all around. The rest of the world saw 9/11 are our welcoming to the kinds of chaos that they've all had to get used to. Ever since then the masses have been living in this fear that it will be the big building in their city next. They placed their trust in fools time and time again whose greatest assets were really great speechwriters and the means to make their words seem as real as possible from the podium. Even now, nearly seven years later, they're still tapping their hollow skulls in search of the brains they lost when those planes came in low.
During my freshman year of college, myself and two other boys sat and discussed the state of things. Fueled by the crack era, the teachings of a number of religions and the education that can come from just looking out of your window on a given day, we all thought that judgment day was going to show up before we were old men. I spoke of this idea that I might tell someone else on the frontlines of the rebellion that I used to be a writer, back when there was room for such a trivial occupation. But my good friend (who for a time would become my best friend) argued the point that perhaps we were the last generation who could band together and stop this cataclysmic end from happening. And I believed that, and kept it close in the years that followed. Then I found a different path, a different city, and a different version of the same life. After that I stopped looking at our fate in terms of extremes. There's no building without destruction. There is no peace without war. '
Even if Obama and his supporters lose this battle, they will have positioned themselves so much better for the next one. Hell, if nothing else, the hood got involved this time. If nothing else, there are now million of young men and women who have validation that they have a shot at being something other than a rapper or a comedian, who won't strip down to nothing just so their song will get played on BET. Maybe the point of all of this from the vantage point of the people upstairs is that folks like Wright will finally be heard outside of certain circles. Only time will tell. Only time will tell. Out.
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