CARMEN D: In 2004, President George Bush garnered 44% of the Latino vote and pundits everywhere declared that “Hispanics” were conservative, and might provide a growing base of support for the Republican party going forward. It was a reasonable hypothesis, I guess…
ELLE, PHD: I expected to cry if Barack Obama won the election—everyone who knows me expected me to cry. I even had friends who called and said, “Are you crying yet?” Admittedly, I dashed away a few tears, but I didn’t really cry. The joy I felt was overshadowed by worry. And why am I letting it get to me?
MATTTBASTARD: Does it make me feel proud to see someone who reflects my biracial identity at the helm of the world’s most powerful nation? Sure—but what Barack Obama’s victory most represents to me is “an opportunity.” The margins of ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’ have been redefined. This ain’t about the man—never was.
DEAR MISTER PRESIDENT ELECT: You are too smart to pretend you don’t see all this. So I say if you do not act on it and soon, you are nodding along with this scourge that threatens both our peoples and the whole nation as a consequence. And I know I don’t need to be overly direct about this, but I will anyway:
JOSE VILSON: Barack Obama isn’t just a man in isolation or the man who’ll lead this country for the next four to eight years, but also a mass movement for that future, a bright one. Barack has overtly galvanized the country in his favor and has built a formidable youth movement that should keep this generation’s voice heard, but its soul intact.
BLACKAMAZON: Not another going back till that ship on that sea woman rocking now fatherless children. Not another beautiful “strong black woman” punished by loneliness for loving a man trying to be good. Not another group of brothers in tears kicking themselves because they FELL FOR IT THIS TIME AGAIN. That they believed that this time work would pay off. We prayed for it, chanted lit candles, and it seems like it snuck up on us…
MOYA BAILEY: I don’t feel victorious. I don’t feel like we won. I do think that these sentiments are particularly interesting after the early press spin that asked whether Barack was black enough and black people were ambivalent about the answer. Now he’s one of us, our hero, our modern day Martin and Malcolm….
I AM VERY HAPPY that my children will grow up to see Barack Obama as our President. I do think certain lines of thinking, where people imagine the arc of justice completed now that a black man is our President, go too far and too soon. But I know that from this day forward, children in the USA will grow up with a different idea of African Americans and our country, both.
HERE’S A SHORT PERFORMANCE by the not-yet-renowned Luna S. Herrera, reprising a duet she performed with the Virtual Tracy Chapman in 2007. For the 2008 version she chooses a recorder instead of keys and experiments with many finger positions and one or two notes. Okay, maybe one.
AND NOW, the results of The PoliticsOnline.com Presidential Election Predictor Competition! Each member of the Online100 panel, the daily tracker of the US blogosphere consisting of the “100 leading online voices in the United States” was asked to predict the outcome in all twenty potential battleground states. The envelope, por favor!
YOU ASK ME am I happy? Well as matter of fact, I can say that I’m ecstatic, ’cause we all just made a pact. We’ve agreed to get together, joined as children in Jah! When you’re moving in the positive, your destination is the brightest star…
IT’S BEEN A LONG, INTENSE ELECTION YEAR. And just as after the primaries ended, at this point I feel the need to center myself. To calm, to restore, to reorient and mostly to withdraw a bit from the online activity and conversation, at least for a brief moment. Enough to mark a pause or a divide.
WE HAVE AMAZING STORES OF POWER within us. Stores of energy; of psychic, spiritual, and mental energy. That’s why we can heal ourselves and sicken ourselves and others around us. Obama is not perfect, but from what I see, he believes in orienting upon the restorative, constructive, and healing properties of that energy. And anyone who does this has my attention.
CONGRATULATIONS TO BARACK OBAMA, the 44th president (-elect) of the United States of America. And to all who supported and worked for or contributed in some way toward this moment. It has been an overwhelming and amazing night. Here’s looking toward the future, and all it may contain.
A LINE OF THOUGHT going around today is the idea that while we all want change badly and see this election as heralding or potentiating important change, we are the ones who have to bring this about. And not just by participating in politics, but every day, in many ways.
House of Nezua
the XOLAGRAFIK theater!
