Browsing all 8 posts in African American Perspectives Week.

1

A Great Rejoicing Across the Land [AAP#8]

Sunday, November 16th, 2008

ALEXIS PAULINE GUMBS: I understand why looking at that family and imagining them in the White House makes us imagine we might finally be at home. But I have to resist that feeling. If I pretend that home is something that the state can give me in the form of a good-looking “first family” without stopping its economic, invasive, nativist violence, then I deny us all the home in the making that I believe in today and every day.

4

The Cross Road. [AAP#7]

Saturday, November 15th, 2008

KEVIN: The Cross Road has been on my mind lately. Not because I feel that our President-Elect, Barack Obama, is at The Cross Road in the sense of selling his soul to become President, or that he is “out alone after dark” in his new role as leader of the United States. Both possibilities are there, to be sure, but that is not what concerns me now…

4

Is Barack Obama the needed bridge between blacks & Latinos? [AAP#6]

Friday, November 14th, 2008

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…

2

Assessing the Secret of Joy [AAP #5]

Friday, November 14th, 2008

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?

6

Barack Obama: [Re]defining Possibilities [AAP#4]

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

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.

8

The Forever After [AAP#3]

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

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.

5

Can’t Think After Yet [AAP#2]

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

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…

9

After the Morning After, After the Night Before . . . [AAP#1]

Monday, November 10th, 2008

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….