President Obama speaks out about Trayvon Martin/The child who would be president

Finally, what we all have been waiting for. President Obama speaks out about Trayvon Martin. This story has been elevated to a level where our country - the world - must now pay attention. Finally, thanks to social media and the ability it creates to mobilize millions, this senseless tragedy may find justice, and a national conversation on race relations is exploding. Finally, millions of white people may now have an awareness about and a better understanding of "the talk" parents of black and brown children must have about "no matter how amazing and wonderful you are, you are not safe in this world" as their children are coming of age. Finally.

National Public Radio reports the story here, but below is an excerpt:

"When I think about that boy, I think about my own kids" and that "if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," President Obama just said when asked about the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and the national discussion it has reignited about race relations in America.

Without commenting on what happened in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26, when 28-year-old George Zimmerman shot Martin, the president said it is "absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this" to determine "exactly how this tragedy happened."

"All of us have some soul searching" to do, said the president, "to figure out how something like this happened."

And Obama said he has a message for Martin's parents: "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness this deserves and get to the bottom of what happened."

And here is a video clip of his comments: 



I would just add this: Yes, if President Obama had a son he would look like Trayvon. And at 17, the teenager who would become our president could have been Trayvon. Think about that and let it sink in...

The child who would be President

As a little kid.

At Trayvon's age.

And now our president. He made it.

I wonder what Trayvon might have become? 

Will Obama finally kick some oily ass?

 Image: "Spotted at a BP station in Ohio," 
First published on The Rachel Maddow Show's Flickr stream 

Credited to "Mark and Vicki Cipolle." 

About half the world is furious at what is happening in the Gulf. Furious at BP. Furious someone can't figure out how to stop this catastrophe. (My dad used to say, "If we can land a man on the moon, how come we can't [fill in blank for problem that needs solving].")

It helps me that Barack Obama is our president during this crisis. Unlike George W. Bush, who seemed to think it was okay to leave thousands of hungry, thirsty, poor (mostly Black) people stranded in the Superdome during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Obama is a moral, principled man. That would not, could not have happened on his watch.

So I have faith, but my patience is running thin.

I am ready for him to kick some major ass.

I doubt - as brilliant as he is - that he personally knows how to stop the oil gushing into the Gulf. But he does have the power to make the people who do know what to do fix the damn leak and then be accountable to clean up the mess and address the environmental fallout over the long term.

Today on her very fine blog, Whose Shoes Are These Anyway, blogger and New Orleans resident Nordette Adams ("Vérité Parlant is Nordette Adams") says,

"MSNBC is promoting Matt Lauer's Today Show interview with President Barack Obama, which airs tomorrow, June 8. Already, the clip of Obama on the oil spill, saying he talks to experts so he'll know "whose ass to kick" is making the rounds. I have no comment other than what I've said before, "Obama needs to put on the Great Oil Spill Show." See also, "Obama calls GOP the party of No."

"And will Obama's use of the word "ass" appease Bill Maher and Spike Lee and the rest of America clamoring for "the angry Obama"? I still say people want to see him in chest-high waders scooping oil from the Gulf of Mexico with his hands."

Check out the rest of her post, including a promo clip for the Obama interview, as well as some spot-on related posts here.

(I agree with her about Obama in waders personally scooping oil, BTW, while simultaneously kicking some major ass.)

Letter to President Obama on Afghanistan

I don't typically write letters to the President. I know (from working in an elected official's office myself) that such a letter is screened by some 20-something aide, then cataloged and perhaps sent a stock response. But I felt compelled to send the following email letter yesterday, on the afternoon before the speech explaining to the public the "justification" for escalating the war in Afghanistan. Somewhere in my heart I thought if enough energy is sent to Obama, he would access his heart and change his mind.

December 1, 2009

President Obama,

I fiercely supported your campaign for president and believe you are the best president for our country and our world.

I believe in your brilliance and compassion and your political savvy. I believe in your vision for change. I believe you are a change maker.

You inherited a huge mess and are trying to make your way through some unbelievable burdens not of your doing. I think you are steering us toward a better tomorrow on almost every front.

That said, I feel compelled to write to say I do not support your decision to increase troops in Afghanistan. I say that having family members who are in harm's way, right now, serving there. I know there is a belief that more troops will make them safer and will make the outcome of the war better. I disagree. They will be safer if they come home. We can address issues of instability in that region without this escalation. If anyone can figure out how, I believe it can be you.

President Obama, we need our energy, our dollars, and our hearts focused on the crisis at home. We need better health care, better public education, more affordable housing, more jobs.

Please, listen to your heart, which I believe is the heart of a peacemaker, not a war maker.

I know you have weighed your options carefully, but do not go down in history as the person responsible for escalating this conflict.

Rather, I urge you to be the leader who stands in line with Ghandi, and with Martin Luther King Jr., and insists that change is possible through peaceful action.

Sincerely, and with respect,

Ann Freeman

I am also honored and humbled to be asked to post this letter on the blog for the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Cross post from A Slant Truth: People Liked Obama, Don’t Worry; It’s 0nly Black People

I am cross-posting a wicked post from Kevin of "A Slant Truth." This guy is razor sharp. Follow his blog! I've added his post here, but go to his blog post and be sure to read the comments, especially that call him racist for calling out racism! Post-racial life, indeed.

A Slant Truth

If You Thought People Liked Obama, Don’t Worry; It’s 0nly Black People.

By Kevin ⋅ May 1, 2009

One of my non-blogging buddies (one of the coolest mofos on the planet, actually) tipped me to this nice little article, by Byron York, entitled The black-white divide in Obama’s popularity. Imagine the look on my face when I read this, the very first paragraph (actually, don’t imagine that look; it’s not pretty):

On his 100th day in office, Barack Obama enjoys high job approval ratings, no matter what poll you consult. But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.

Um, yeah…WTF?

This dude actually wrote this. Here, let me translate this for you:

Black people don’t count (or if they do count, they sure as hell don’t count for more than 3/5’s of a white person) so, even if President Obama has a high approval rating, it’s not accurate (or actual) because black folks are all up in the mix. We all know that only white people’s opinions matter, right?

The entire article says nothing other than black people like Obama, and so he’s not really as popular as you think he is. It doesn’t matter that we happen to be members of the population and so our opinions count too. It doesn’t matter that black folks also overwhelmingly liked Bill Clinton. No one challenged Bill Clinton’s popularity because black folks loved him (ok, now that I think on this some more, I bet a good handful of folks did, but still). But when a lot of black folks happen to like another black dude, well then obviously something is amiss.

Post-Racial United States. Gotta love it.

Inauguration Roundup

A compilation of links to key events during today's amazing
Inauguration of Barack Obama

• Beautiful and elegant new official web site for the White House/President
• Obama taking the Oath of Office
• Obama Inauguration speech, video and text.
• Aretha Franklin singing My Country Tis of Thee
• Elizabeth Alexander reads inaugural poem "Praise Song for the Day" Video. Text.
• Reverend Joseph Lowery benediction (video)
• Air + Simple Gifts Yo-Yo Ma , Itzhak Perlman , Anthony McGill & Gabriela Montero
  

The many faces of the Obama Family at the Inauguration. They embody the real America, people! An excerpt from the story:

The family that produced Barack and Michelle Obama is black and white and Asian, Christian, Muslim and Jewish. They speak English; Indonesian; French; Cantonese; German; Hebrew; African languages including Swahili, Luo and Igbo; and even a few phrases of Gullah, the Creole dialect of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Very few are wealthy, and some — like Sarah Obama, the stepgrandmother who only recently got electricity and running water in her metal-roofed shack — are quite poor.

The President and Mrs. Obama dancing to "At Last" at the Neighborhood Ball.
I say, "INDEED! AT LAST!"

More from the Neighborhood Ball -- Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours!

One week til Inauguration and all things are not equal

Inauguration Day is one week away. I'm taking the day off work to watch, with my spouse and a few close friends. No doubt we will cry. No doubt we will remember forever that moment as history unfolds.

Obama said this on election night: "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."

While the dream is very much alive and a global sense of hope and possibility leaped ahead at warp speed the moment he was elected, all things are not equal -- far from it -- and I'm worried about white people. I'm worried about us as a large foreboding mass of ignorance about race and racial injustice. I'm worried that too many white people who have little or no experience with all things African American will believe that racial equality has been achieved in America because we elected a black man as president.

I'm worried that conservatives will use Obama's presidency as a reason to overturn civil rights laws. It's already begun with an appeal to overturn The Voting Rights Act. And affirmative action? A new study suggests that if affirmative action was to vanish, the result would be a 35 percent drop in the enrollment of students from underrepresented minority groups at the most competitive colleges — but little gain for white students.

The truth is, and we hold these truths to be self evident: Obama's election deepens the fissure between those who are achieving and those who are not. We all may be created equal, but we are far from achieving equality.

It starts early. When my kids were in grade school, I remember heading to their school for yet another visit with the principal because my son had been acting bad again. When I got to school -- an arts magnet in the Minneapolis Public Schools -- and turned into the school office, I saw my son and four other kids lined up on the bench waiting to see the principal. They were all black, all boys.

I had peeked into the auditorium on my way to the office and saw the school orchestra practicing -- about 75% girls and and about 85% white. This is a school that was majority kids of color, and of those kids, majority African American.

Now either you fundamentally believe that black children are somehow less capable than white children or you know something is wrong with that picture.

Something was very wrong with that picture -- a snapshot among many in my life -- and something is very wrong with pictures and statistics about how black people, especially African American men, are faring across the country.

Here are few gleaned from the African American Men Project in Hennepin County a few years back:

• 28 percent of African American males enrolled in the Minneapolis Public Schools graduate in four years
• Young African American men are twice as likely to die and 27 times more likely to go to jail as are young white men
• Forty-four percent of young African American men are arrested each year
• Homicide is the No. 1 cause -- 64 percent -- of all deaths

I am absolutely certain that those stats hold up today, or are worse.

On election day, 95% of African Americans who voted cast their vote for Obama. But did you know that over a million African American men who might have voted could not. Not did not. Could not, because of felony convictions. Could not, even if their time had been served.

This is called disenfranchisement. The Sentencing Project has this to say about the issue: "Nationally, an estimated 5.3 million Americans are denied the right to vote because of laws that prohibit voting by people with felony convictions. This fundamental obstacle to participation in democratic life is exacerbated by racial disparities in the criminal justice system, resulting in an estimated 13% of Black men unable to vote."

Last fall, the organization released a report, "Losing the Vote," that makes stark this problem. A couple of "highlights:"

• 1.4 million African American men are disenfranchised, a rate seven times the national average.
• Given current rates of incarceration, three in ten of the next generation of black men can expect to be disenfranchised at some point in their lifetime. In states that disenfranchise ex-offenders, as many as 40% of black men may permanently lose their right to vote.
• 2.1 million disenfranchised persons are ex-offenders who have completed their sentences.

I could go on, but I won't. For now.

I just want to make sure we are all clear about this self evident truth -- Obama's election is a dream made real 45 years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial and called for a better world for his children, and for ours. It is. But we aren't there yet, not by a long shot. People of color, African Americans in particular, understand this truth explicitly.

But white people.... I'm worried about us. So listen up. Next Tuesday, when Barack Obama becomes the 44th President of the United States, embrace that moment as perhaps the achievement in the fight for racial justice in our lifetime. But more important, embrace that moment as the first next step toward the incredible, difficult work that's left to be done. We must always move forward from wherever we are now, and must never turn back.