The Black and the White of the DNC

During the past eight years of Cheney-Bush rule, many of my white liberal friends have often threatened to move to Germany or Spain or somewhere else where healthcare is universal, drugs are plentiful, and the gays can get hitched anytime they please.  They often look at me perplexed when I shake my head and wag my finger in derision at their over-romanticized notion of Europe; seemingly unable to understand how I could not think that life in those progressive lands would be infinitely better than remaining here in the [United States of Jesusland].

Now don't get me wrong; I'd love to spend my life smoking all the sticky-icky Holland has to offer and then make the government pay for my emphysema treatments. But after spending over five years in Europe, I can tell you that it ain't all sunshine and lollipops for us black folks.  Stores have treated me like I was Oprah shopping at Hermés and refused to accept my credit card; as a child in Germany, some people tried to rub and pat my nappy hair because they considered it good luck to do so to a black child; and random wanksters have hooted and hollered at me in imitation of some jungle ape.

This is not to say that America doesn't have a problem with race—we are the land that used African slave labor to build our Executive Mansion and then had the nerve to name it the White House.  Yet yesterday, this nation witnessed a beautiful thing: the first time in our 232 year history that a person of color received the official nomination of a major political party.  Regardless of the outcome of this race, Americans of all shades should feel a sense of pride and accomplishment.  Fittingly, this came on what would have been the 100th birthday of Lyndon Baines Johnson, [the president who convinced and cajoled the United States Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965] (not to mention two other civil rights acts in 1957 and 1964), which effectively guaranteed the right of African Americans to vote.  Without that act, it is inconceivable that Obama would be in the position he finds himself today.  What's remarkable is that Johnson, a man who at one point voted against a bill aimed at ending lynching, knew that by pushing this act he would lose the votes of white Southerners for generations to come. 

It's remarkable that it was Barack's former rival [Hillary Clinton, who on the floor of the convention], surrounded by thousands of her still seething supporters called for Obama to be declared by acclamation the Democratic candidate for president.

It's remarkable that many of those white liberal friends of mine who were utterly through with the lack of progress in America and were ready to leave it all behind are now the very backbone of Obama's campaign.

And it's also remarkable that despite the divisiveness of the past eight years, we are a nation where the slave race that built the White House may see one of its own inhabit that house as President.  Let's just hope that the next time Obama meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel she doesn't try to rub his head ;-)