From Love at First Sight to Marriage Jetters...

Obama's still the man according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll released today. His negatives post-America realizing that yes there is a race problem (aka Rev. Wright controversy) are roughly the same. And even more importantly his positives are sweet and Hillary's are bitter.

This is very good news for all the Obama-ites out there. It seems that the only folks who are moved negatively by this are mostly Republicans, but with the news of huge Democratic registration numbers things are definitely looking on the up and up.

Go 'bama!

UPDATE: Okay, I'm obsessing about campaign news yes, but this is good. Superdelegates, lot of 'em non-elected party activists it seems like in this article, are on the verge of revolting against the Clinton's for their shadiness over the past week. Check it out.

Saturday Night Blackface

When you really want to cut to the chase of political discourse, or any discourse for that matter, don't turn on the Evening News or pick up a newspaper. No instead check out the funnies, flip to Comedy Central. Laughter is an awesome force of sharing and shaping social thought. Think Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Margaret Cho, Family Guy, and even Jerry Seinfield's shows about "nothing" actually proved to be a remarkable something for Jewish identity in popular culture. These comedians and cultural phenoms wear a mask of laughter that gives them carte blanche access to controversial, politically incorrect, and just down right uncouth subjects that sometimes has no business on television or for that matter said in ear shot of anybody's momma. This is why the introduction by Saturday Night Live of its new Barack Obama character was as anticipated in some circles as it was. What better political figure to parody than Obama. It's gotta be a hit, right?

Wrong.

Scholars, columnists, and bloggers (ahem) are outraged at the casting of a non-Black actor as Barack Obama. Turn's out Fred Armisten is half white and Asian. Granted whoever plays Obama, parody and implicit sarcasm and masking will be in play. But blackface? Come on now, it ain't like we should go there. To assume that NBC does not have the resources for a proper national casting call among Black or actors of Mixed Black heritage to find an Obama actor based on merit is delusional (And doesn't SNL's merit defense sound uncomfortably close to something one of my hateful fav 5's UT Law Professor Lino Graglia has been known to fart out?).

Reading between the lines of the Washington Post article linked above, I get the feeling that the SNL producers are pushing back with the "he played Prince and nobody cared then" line. My response to them is: we didn't care cause we didn't know boozo heads! And I think others might also push back with the fact that Obama is mixed race himself and has positioned his campaign as post-race so colorblind casting is just deserts and fair game. I say hogwash. Obama has said repeatedly that his election would not end racial inequalities (citation to come).

I have watched the video of Mr. Armisten's first performance of Obama. At the time I did not know Armisten was wearing darker makeup and was non-Black. I was underwhelmed by his performance and thought he seemed a bit nervous. Knowing now that the actor isn't even Black is further proof of how much of a better performance Obama needs than his opponents to get a laugh and win the election.

Onward!

P.S. I have purposely not provided the link to the SNL video out of protest. It is only available on NBC's website which has a number of ads on the site and embedded with the SNL footage that undoubtedly are paying the checks of the very same producers and casting agents I've been hating in this blog entry.

Texas Swagger

Back when I visited my family in Houston this past Christmas, I dared not bring up the subject of Barack Obama. Back in the '90s our household was a Clinton Hate Free Zone. The scandals? Healthcare failures? Losses of Democratic majorities? The Clintons could do no wrong. My brother and dad, the former a cop and the latter a mailman, would not be swayed from abandoning Hill, Bill, and the goodwill they shared with America's blue collar workers. Even my graduate school bound sister who usually took the highroad and stayed out of petty political arguments would weigh in with: "Morrison said he's blacker than us all!" Yup, back in the day, our house defended the fall of the House of Clinton through and through. And besides, with Dean, Nader, and Bradley on my record an argument on my behalf hasn't proven to be Las Vegas worthy.

"Obama! Obama! Obama," my dad boomed over the phone last week. Wha-?! What about the 90s? Or.. or what about the VRWC? And the economy? Stupid!! "Obama's the man!" is all my dad shot back with. Wait a second. Back up a minute, Pops. Does this mean that after all of these years of me being marginalized as the left wing of the Democratic party and all of these years of being shut out of the Clinton Centralizing Machine are finally over? Done? Stuck a fork in?

The end of abnormalizing: anti-war, anti-queer, anti-poverty, anti-backroom politics? Could it really be?

No. Way.

Obviously there is still a race going on for the nomination. But as of today, Obama leads in the popular vote, states won, pledged delegates, and converts moving closer to perverts like me. That's something to tip your hat to.

Light,

Andre L.

Letter to Congressman Towns of New York (CD 10)

Feel free to copy and paste the jest of this letter and send it to your own Congressperson. -A.

= = =

Dear Mr. Towns,

I am a registered voter in Bed Stuy. I am disappointed that you decided to preempt the people's primary vote by giving your superdelegate support to Senator Clinton before the New York Primary and before the rest of the country's primary voting ends later this year. The vote totals in CD 10 have not been released publicly yet on the NYC Board of Elections website, but in Brooklyn as a whole Barack Obama ran strongly against Senator Clinton as per The New York Times.

I disagree with your choice to preempt the people. Should in a future CD 10 election a candidate for Congress arise who values the people's voice over political favors, I will seriously consider supporting him or her.

Best,

Andre L.

A Tale of Two Guerrilla Poster Campaigns in Bed Stuy

The first poster campaign hit my Bed Stuy neighborhood several weeks ago. With a solitary black and white image on white office paper and the emboldened word "VOTE," it conveys a clear message. Vote for the anti-Iraq War, transparent government, and inspirational candidate. The other set of posters hit Marcy Avenue in the past day or so. They are also on plain office paper, but their images are not simple. They complicate and question. They are the anti-directive directive. While both poster campaigns employ a lo-fi aesthetic, "VOTE" leads the viewer to a straightforward decision. The two "Change" posters, however, add noise to this decision through its smart use of the collage form. They fill space with presidential candidates as puppets mouthing off "Change" on a national stage, curtains open for the world (and Bed Stuy) to see. "What will change in Bed Stuy?" one poster asks. Since these posters appeared after the "VOTE" posters, it's pretty safe to say that the "Change" creators don't believe voting will change anything.

There is much truth to the "Change" posters. Bed Stuy has had Black representation on the city, state, and federal level for years and still has one of the highest economic disparities in New York City. To vote for Barack Obama and invest in hope for local change, the “Change” creators would argue is void of any historical evidence. In an election where the campaigns are raising record sums of donations, the gloss-less and on-the-cheap presentation of ideas of the “Change” posters is not only David vs. Goliath admirable, it is also effective and, well, democratic. Then again, the "VOTE" poster is gloss-less too. The image on "VOTE" is smiling and, yes, even hopeful. It is also an image that gives an action step: Vote. Yes, "Change" pushes one to question, but it seems more concerned with the process of questioning than anything else. It's when I see that sunny face (or perhaps Giuliani's sinister laugh or Clinton's calculated move) that I consider the false choice between which these posters have presented Bed Stuy.

Is Barack Obama the Answer?

She said, "I am married to the answer."

After a week in which a certain prominent blogger posted an entry with an irresponsible and tabloid-esque B.O. headline (which I intentionally do not link here), I'd like to shine a little light on The Answer's partner in crime: Michelle Obama.

Though I didn't go to this event, there's a good YouTube floating around that takes you to the scene in Harlem where Mrs. Obama stumped, spoke, and downright preached to a gathering of Women for Obama '08. For those, like me, familiar with Michelle's "funny name" stump speech: the first part you ain't going to learn anything new. BUT after that obligatory warm up piece, she rhetorically begins asking how is it that a man with Barack's experience (Harvard Law Review President, Community Organizer, State and Federal Legislative Experience) could he be called inexperienced? Only in this country, she said, could that happen.

The largely black and female audience's call-and-response energy let it be known that they had an answer to Michelle's question.

Check the YouTube:

Obama/Ford Case Study

Good news for Obama:

"In 2006, when white Republican Bob Corker beat black Democrat Harold Ford Jr. to represent Tennessee in the Senate, Corker's lead was overstated in the polls. Whites voted for Ford in largely the numbers they had told pollsters they would."

Familiar with the concern that though Obama's poll numbers are high now, white voters in the privacy of their voting booths will change their mind and vote for the white Republican? Well worry not, Obama-heads! I hadn't heard about these exit poll numbers from Harold Ford Jr.'s Senate run, but it's encouraging.

Remember that crazy white fright ad that Coker dropped right before the election?

All this being said and even with the heated nature of the campaign that ads like this exploited, the O Campaign has to be encouraged by these numbers from Ford's run. Though he ultimately lost, many pundits wrote that given the obstacles (playboy superbowl party, family history of corruption, a Black man running for Senate in Tennessee!) Ford ran a strong campaign.

Check out the full Washington Post article here. There's some juicy and honest interviews with folks talking about race and Obama's campaign.

P.S. I'm a big Edwards fan too, but do folks think he can win a general election when Republicans will surely attack him for not ever visiting Iraq?