WE WRAP UP our week of the African American Perspective at UMX feature with depth and soul and power and I thank Alexis for capping things off so. I want to thank all the writers who were generous enough to help me make this feature work and share their thoughts, feelings and experience with the UMX audience. I have found all the various viewpoints extremely helpful even in arranging my own thoughts. I also owe big thanks to Sylvia, my admin. asst. at XOLAGRAFIK for coordinating much of the effort. Tomorrow we return to your normal Nezrantium terrarium. Hasta entonces!

—Nezua

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is the founder of BrokenBeautiful Press. She is also a PhD candidate in English, Africana Studies and Women’s Studies at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

A Great Rejoicing Across the Land.

The night before election day this November, Durham’s Youth Noise Network (YNN) presented a poetic audio presentation of June Jordan’s insightful and prophetic essay “On the Night of November 3rd 1992.” Jordan wrote that piece about end of the Bush era, about an exuberant election party celebrating the victory of a candidate who had campaigned on hope and change, about the giddy belief that a diverse groups of people we able to have for a moment in the United States of America. Jordan was writing at the end of the first Bush era, celebrating the election of Bill Clinton, and Jordan’s belief was never in Bill Clinton himself, but in the potential power of a majority that voiced it’s rejection of the status quo and it’s belief in change that day.

The night before election day this November, Durham’s Youth Noise Network, most of whom were born around 1992, most of whom cannot vote, read that essay like it was scripture or news, and said we do not trust or expect politicians to create the world we want and need. We do not believe that one person will make a world worthy for us to live in. We know that we are the people, nonvoters though we may be. And we know that it takes all the people doing more than voting to create a change worth living for.

And at home, having just left YNN I had a semblance of the moment I saw so many have the next night when the election results were announced. The night before, I stood up screaming, I clapped, I danced around the room, I was near tears. I said YES! over and over again. I was hearing a change I could believe in. The youth in my city were claiming their futures and our world. I am tearing up again even as I write this. I live in a city (and if you ask you will find that each of us do) where the young people know what power is and what it isn’t. And they know that you don’t trust a politician, you can only trust your own movement. I stood on a chair and sent frantic celebratory text messages. A great rejoicing.

The month before November (aka October) I was on the Grassroots Media Justice Tour
sponsored by Left Turn Magazine, Free Speech Radio News, Make/Shift Magazine, Spread Magazine and Bitch Magazine that went across the SouthEast in a beautifully bootleg and breakneck manner. Once we were even in the same city (Asheville) as the president-elect on the same day. (And astonishingly people still came to our workshops.) In most of the cities I led a workshop called “Pressed for Knowledge” in which a group of stranger came together to create radical publications in 2 hours. Watching groups in different southern cities agree and disagree on matters of messaging, content, audiences and division of labor, watching people create community by creating art stregnthened my deep belief in direct democratic practice.

And every night as I facilitated a poetic exercise called “Dig” which asked everyone to fill in the blank “If you dig here you will find __________.” I found myself making church in my own mouth, filling myself with mmhmms, and yeses at the startling depth of every statement, at each communities newly articulated recognition of it’s roots and cracks, at the hope in the faces of the people in the next cities as they listened to our growing sound collage. I found myself believing in places, Valdosta, Georgia…Pensacola, Florida that I had never considered important parts of my world. A great rejoicing. Across the land.

So, after a very important month, and a very important night there came that other moment, that I had not been waiting my whole life. Call me impatient. Say I jumped the gun, but like most of the people I know, love and respect, I have not been content to wait my whole life to find traces of home, identification and affirmation in the place that I live. I have been digging for those things all along, in the days spent writing, reading and listening with young people, and elders, in the hundreds of poetic exercises I’ve imposed on unexpecting and brilliant audiences, by putting my hands in the dirt of our community garden, by searching the archives for hidden histories that affirm a radical existence here in this place.

The election of a particular American President cannot, must not be the determining factor of my joy, or of my ability to be inspired in this place that I live.

In her essay, “On the Night of November 3rd 1992,” June Jordan says that upon the of Bill Clinton, at her election party, full of a multicultural group of friends and loved ones, she felt more at home than she had ever felt. And I understand why so many people, especially black people, keep saying that they feel proud of their country for the first time in lifetimes, and why we identify with the ascent of this particular family. I get it. My dad is a well-spoken charismatic light skinned guy who is very convincing when he speaks (even and especially in front of white people), my sister and I used to wear our hair like those beautiful little girls. I understand why looking at that family on stage, and imagining them in the white house makes some of us imagine that we might finally be at home.

But I have to resist that feeling. This is not the Cosby show. I cannot imagine that I am home when my chosen family is still under attack from the INS, when the president-elect can come out of his mouth and support an apartheid Israeli state, when all of the Republican AND Democratic candidates in my state ran on anti-immigrant platforms.

If I accept this election as the foundation of my home, I am sacrificing the home I actually want, the home I am collecting and saving out of the faces of every poetic collaborator, every workshop participant, every morning, afternoon and evening with the youth visionaries of Durham. If I pretend that home is something that the state can give me in the form of a good-looking “first family”, without stopping any of its economic, invasive, nativist violence, then I deny us all the home in the making that I believe in today and every day. And the day before and the month before, and always as long as you live here with me.

love,
alexis

*note: the title comes from June Jordan’s “On the Night of November 3rd 1992″ in her collection of essays Affirmative Acts.

ALSO TODAY in the African American Perspective at UMX feature we have a post on African Americans and Latinos by a blogmiga whom I know personally. She’s one dynamo you want on your side, full of fire and joy and positivity. (And dig her pretty blog, wow! Who designed that thing? ::wink wink::) So gracias, Carmen! [PS, As Carmen did not send me a bio, I have patched together one from some words on her own blog's About page.]

(For those just tuning in, this special feature at UMX runs through to Sunday the 16th of November with at least one new post every day.)

Carmen D. is an Independent with moderate political views, a social liberal with strong opinions and is always open to a good argument. She has lived in projects and affluent neighborhoods, experienced poverty and abundance, had life changing experiences traveling all around the USA as a producer for ABC News, and throughout all of it her foundation has been the world view and intellectual curiousity her mother and grandmother provided while she was growing up.

Is Barack Obama the needed bridge between blacks and Latinos?

Is Barack Obama the needed bridge between blacks and Latinos? Maybe.

One of the most “YES!” inducing moments of last Tuesday’s election dissection, was learning that my Latino hermanas y hermanos had come out in a large majority (2 to 1) to support Barack Obama. 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. But what no one saw coming in 2004 is how sharply a first effort at immigration reform would be excoriated and then vetoed by both members of the Republican party and the right wing electorate. The call to stop all efforts toward immigration reform “until we secured our borders” left a foul taste in the gut of many who were surprised at how quickly John McCain dropped his rather mavericky effort and lurched as close to the Minutemen, without walking a shift on the border, as one could get.

There were a few expressions of bigotry coming from high profile Latinos, that seemed to be signaling a skepticism, even within the brown community, that Latinos in high numbers would support a black candidate. The encouraging observation, however, is that every time this fractured narrative was advanced during the primary and general election season, other members of the Latino community pushed back in a loud and forceful voice.

It was so good to see Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, my home city, lined up behind Obama as a member of his super nova caliber economic team. Villaraigosa was a chair of Hillary Clinton’s campaign so I am glad to know that bygones are bygones. And I believe Obama is sending a signal to Latino people that his administration will recognize and honor their contribution to his victory.

To be honest, there is a detectable tension between blacks and Latinos here. It is pronounced in certain areas of the city where there is underemployment, high gang activity and a lack of job and educational opportunities. Not surprising, right? But my view of the tension is that it’s rooted in a sense of lack and an inability to see the power in working together across the color spectrum to push for expanded opportunities and fairness for everyone. I believe that if Barack Obama, while he works on fixing the economy and keeping us ‘safe’, is steadfast in pursuit of smart and humane immigration reform coupled with strategic, high level Latino appointments, his administration can proffer the profound sense of “hope” for little Latino girl and boys, their big brothers and sisters and their moms and dads that was instantly instilled in black children and their families on November 4th.

TODAY in the African American Perspective at UMX feature we are gifted with an essay by Elle, the Southern sistorian whose blogging is always personal, openhearted, and real. (For those just tuning in, this special feature at UMX runs through to Sunday the 16th of November with a new post every day.)

Elle is a historian whose work centers the lives and labors of black women. she’s a single mama, an erratic blogger, and an assistant professor.

Assessing the Secret of Joy

I’ve been thinking about this post all week and, as usual when I’m preoccupied about something, I called my mom. She listened to me go on and on for a while about all my fears and concerns, all the worrisome things I’ve heard and read. Finally, she broke in to say, “Don’t let people steal your joy!” And I realized, in the immediate aftermath of the election, that is what I did.

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. Already, I was thinking about the Obama family out there on that huge stage. But I worried more about, “oh-my-god-if-he’s-not-immediately-the-bes-tpresident-EVAR-people-will-freak!”

The worries got to me. More importantly, people got to me. The Thursday after the election, I walked into one of the offices in my department in which two white women (one a student, one a staff person) were having a discussion. They stopped immediately. Aware of my discomfort (and my inability to leave because I had to search for something), the student began talking again. The topic was the election. I knew the student was from an ultra-conservative background, but tended to be center right herself.

But the other woman? Bitterness poured off her in waves. She launched, loudly, into a speech about how Obama was not a messiah and she was tired of people treating him like he was a god and how it’s been proven he’s been hypnotizing and brainwashing people. She’d picked her friend up from work on election day, she said, and asked if the friend had voted. The friend nodded, but said nothing else for a few minutes, then finally spoke up and said, “I voted for McCain.” “I did too,” she told the student, “And I asked her, why should we be ashamed, you know? Why should we be ashamed to vote for a war hero?”

There have been very few times in my (relatively new) professional life in which I’ve felt I was targeted because I was black. I have no doubt most of that speech occurred because my black self was in that room. That shook me so badly that I went to my co-worker’s office and virtually collapsed. Then, I cried.

And I cried more, after my 12:30 class, when one of my young, white male students approached me, excited, talking about Obama’s victory. “He actually had a majority!” He was so happy and before I could do more than smile, an older student chimed in, “He didn’t win by that much.”

I am frustrated by all these efforts to discount, to downplay the political adroitness of the man. All the rooted-in-reality people, on the left and right, who are cautioning us misled masses not to get our hopes up. Why?

And why am I letting it get to me? I am in a part of the country that didn’t rejoice, didn’t laugh, and dance, and cry in the streets. I am away from family with whom I could have laughed and danced and cried. I think that is part of the reason I reacted so strongly at work—I mean, come on, the women in my department with whom I socialize are a bunch of “latte sipping intellectuals” or whatever, who were firmly behind Obama.

But I had to turn off that besieged part of me to focus on the historicity of this election. Obama’s election does set precedent. Voters are sending an African-American man to the most coveted home in the political world, a house to which, just a century ago, inviting a black man violated American mores.

Yet, in many ways, his victory was not surprising in the aftermath of the primaries. When Americans felt that President Herbert Hoover no longer cared about them, that he was ill-equipped (and unconcerned) with dealing with the realities of an unparalleled economic catastrophe, they sent him and his party home. When conservative Americans felt that the world around them was imploding, raining jagged shards of feminism, civil rights agitation, worker militancy, and anti-war sentiment upon them, they elected Richard Nixon. When southerners felt their cherished Lost Cause had been forgotten and fundamentalists decided they missed the days when women knew their place, they rallied with others to elect Ronald Reagan. After eight years of a bleak, warmongering, fearful, economy-destroying presidency, that the Republicans got the boot is not ahistorical.

Still, that Obama surmounted the obstacle of the election caught me by surprise. I wanted him to win. I wanted him to change things. But I had not yet formulated what I wanted that change to be, what I wanted his presidency to be. I have big ideas-end this hellish war, revive our economy, start the turnaround for public schools, acknowledge and address the civil rights crises that are still ongoing, particularly for PoC, for immigrants and the LGBTQI community, do something about the prison-industrial complex, about poverty, about healthcare.

But I have more intimate ones too. I’ve written before about how the image of 84-year-old Milvertha Hendricks, a black survivor of Hurricane Katrina, wrapped in the American flag, was jarring to me. I have been made to feel like something “other” than American—for my color and my beliefs—for so long, that seeing black people huddled beneath the flag gives me pause. So that is one of my hopes, that his presidency will be a progressive, and people (not money or corporation) centered one, one with which I can identify. That it will be one that responds to people, and not an extension of the imperial presidency (or vice-presidency) that the Bush regime embodied. That would give me the kind of joy that can’t be stolen.

I’m at a point in my life, or in my son’s life, I suppose, where he has become the philosopher to whom I listen most. So as I thought about this post, I consulted him, too. I asked him what he thought the election of Barack Obama to the presidency meant.

He didn’t have anything particularly wise to say this time, on the surface at least. His response was, “He said it was about change, Mama.”

“But what kind?” I prodded.

He shrugged. “I hope a good kind.”

That might just be what I hope most.

LIKE OUR NEW PRESIDENT SAID OF HIMSELF, your host’s greatest attribute is also “humility,” and so it is with that same asset that I now remind you of my inclusion in the Online100 Panel, which was billed as such:

“The first-ever survey of the top 100 online voices and bloggers tracking trends and attitudes heading toward the 2008 Election Day.”

—The PoliticsHome Online100 Panel

I first received the invite from Andrew Rawnsley, Editor-in-Chief of PoliticsHome.com. Mr. Rawnsley is better known, I’d guess, as the Chief Political Commentator of The Observer in the UK.

The full introductory page lists all our names, and the general billing mentions that other members include Mike Allen, Jerome Armstrong, Mark Blumenthal, Sid Blumenthal, Jay Carney, John Fund, Jonah Goldberg, Mark Halperin, Jane Hamsher, Arianna Huffington, Charles Johnson, Ken Layne, Dana Milbank, Karl Rove, Roy Sekoff, Ken Silverstein, Jake Tapper, Michael Tomasky, Joe Trippi and Danny Wattenberg.

That being said, here is today’s summation and announcement from PoliticsHome.com, which before the election, asked us all to predict the outcome in various ways.

Election Night:
Media Winners and Losers

PoliticsHome can now announce the results of its Presidential Election Predictor Competition. Each member of the Online100 panel, consisting of online voices from across the nation, was asked to predict the outcome in all twenty potential battleground states. No panellist got all 20 right. The winners, each on 19 out of 20, were all from the national and statewide blogger parts of the sample. Congratulations to:

The leading mainstream media panellists were:

Fox Tops list of Networks in race to call states first

As part of its comprehensive coverage of election night, PoliticsHome took note of which network called each state first, and the time it did so. The results are as follows:

Alabama	9	REP	38.7	60.5	ABC	8:30	REP
Alaska	3	REP	36.2	61.6	ABC	1:00	REP
Arizona	10	REP	45.1	53.7	NBC	11:30	REP
Arkansas	6	REP	38.8	58.8	FOX	8:30	REP
California	55	DEM	61.3	36.9	NBC	11:00	DEM
Colorado	9	REP	52.6	45.8	NBC	11:14	DEM
Connecticut	7	DEM	60.3	38.6	FOX	8:00	DEM
Delaware	3	DEM	61.3	37.6	FOX	8:00	DEM
DC	3	DEM	92.9	6.5	ABC	8:00	DEM
Florida	27	REP	50.9	48.4	NBC	11:16	DEM
Georgia	15	REP	46.4	52.9	NBC	8:39	REP
Hawaii	4	DEM	71.8	26.6	NBC	11:00	DEM
Idaho	4	REP	36.0	61.6	NBC	11:00	REP
Illinois	21	DEM	61.0	37.7	FOX	8:00	DEM
Indiana	11	REP	49.9	49.0	CBS	3:00	DEM
Iowa	7	REP	54.0	44.7	CNN	10:00	DEM
Kansas	6	REP	41.5	56.8	ABC	9:00	REP
Kentucky	8	REP	41.1	57.5	FOX	7:00	REP
Louisiana	9	REP	39.9	58.6	CBS	9:30	REP
Maine	4	DEM	58.2	39.9	FOX	8:00	DEM
Maryland	10	DEM	60.7	38.0	FOX	8:00	DEM
Massachusetts	12	DEM	62.0	36.3	FOX	8:00	DEM
Michigan	17	DEM	57.4	41.0	NBC	9:00	DEM
Minnesota	10	DEM	54.2	44.0	ABC	9:00	DEM
Mississippi	6	REP	42.7	56.5	ABC	9:52	REP
Missouri	11	REP	49.3	49.5	NBC	10:00	REP
Montana	3	REP	46.5	50.3	ABC	5:00	REP
Nebraska	5	REP	41.2	57.3	ABC	10:22	REP
Nevada	5	REP	55.1	42.7	NBC	11:31	DEM
N Hampshire	4	DEM	54.8	44.3	ABC	8:00	DEM
New Jersey	15	DEM	56.7	42.2	FOX	8:00	DEM
New Mexico	5	REP	56.8	41.9	FOX	9:03	DEM
New York	31	DEM	62.1	36.7	ABC	9:00	DEM
North Carolina	15	REP	49.8	49.6	AP	12:16	DEM
North Dakota	3	REP	44.7	53.3	NBC	9:00	REP
Ohio	20	REP	51.2	47.2	FOX	9:18	DEM
Oklahoma	7	REP	34.4	65.6	FOX	8:00	REP
Oregon	7	DEM	55.4	42.6	NBC	11:00	DEM
Pennsylvania	21	DEM	54.6	44.3	NBC	8:00	DEM
Rhode Island	4	DEM	63.3	35.0	ABC	9:00	DEM
S Carolina	8	REP	44.7	54.1	NBC	7:46	REP
South Dakota	3	REP	44.7	53.2	FOX	10:39	REP
Tennessee	11	REP	41.6	57.2	ABC	8:00	REP
Texas	34	REP	43.8	55.5	CBS	9:20	REP
Utah	5	REP	34.2	62.9	CNN	10:00	REP
Vermont	3	DEM	67.0	31.3	FOX	7:00	DEM
Virginia	13	REP	51.8	47.3	FOX	10:41	DEM
Washington	11	DEM	57.5	40.8	NBC	11:00	DEM
West Virginia	5	REP	42.5	55.8	FOX	7:30	REP
Wisconsin	10	DEM	55.8	42.9	ABC	8:00	DEM
Wyoming	3	REP	32.7	65.2	ABC	9:00	REP
TOTAL %			52	46
E COLLEGE	538		364	174

I need say no more!

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. It may be a half a day, it may be a day, it may be more. But all I know is that for my mental health, I’ll need to be reading not much news and engage in very little negative or combative energy for a moment. And for the most part keep myself engaged in the 3D.

There will be a special feature at UMX next week with a panel of solidly talented African American guest posters, so stick around. I wrote ayer that some of these new discussions we’ll be having need to be centered and led by black folk, so let’s get it on. Not that we all don’t have a part in this new dialogue, of course we do. And I do have much to say just on being a “mixed race” person, (as Barack Obama is) as well as an American citizen. But I feel I should do my part in helping the black population get cocky now that their secret plan to introduce Chitlins to the White House menu is unfolding with such majesty. (If you’d like to be part of the panel, please email my hyper-cocky admin assistant, M.)

There are also some other exciting happenings that I am looking into now, so maybe there will be more on that soon. Meanwhile, consider this thread a place to share some of your post-election feelings with the UMX readership.

As always, I am wishing all mis blogmig@s and friends health, happiness, and a sense of calm from which they can navigate the currents of this everchanging world.

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.

Full Text: Obama’s Victory Speech
11.05.08, 12:12 AM ET
Remarks of President-Elect Barack Obama, as prepared for delivery

Election Night

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

Chicago, Illinois

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.

It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could

be that difference.

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It’s the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

I just received a very gracious call from Senator McCain. He fought long and hard in this campaign, and he’s fought even longer and harder for the country he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader. I congratulate him and Governor Palin for all they have achieved, and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation’s promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation’s next First Lady, Michelle Obama.

Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House. And while she’s no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my campaign manager David Plouffe, my chief strategist David Axelrod, and the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics – you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you’ve sacrificed to get it done.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to – it belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington – it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.

It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has

not perished from this Earth. This is your victory.

I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor’s bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you – we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years – block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers – in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity.

Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world – our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down – we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security – we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding

hope.

For that is the true genius of America – that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing – Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons – because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America – the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot.

Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves – if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time – to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a

people:

Yes We Can. Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

HERE IS AN ‘I VOTED’ BUTTON that I was hired to make. The person who bought it gave permission for me to offer it to you freely, in the spirit of our new Black Socialist Nation. So spread the pixels, my friends, if you so desire. (All I ask is that you don’t hotlink to my server.)

THE DAY IS HERE! Here’s some music to set the tone.

Go vote!

SHOT WHEN I WAS WORKING FOR MTV and their Choose or Lose Street Team, here are three videos (Parts 1, 2, and 3) of Obama speaking at “The Pit” here in Oregon. (Written story here.) They overlap a little because a week or so went by between my making each one, and I wanted people to catch up each time. I feel very lucky to have been part of history in the small way I was, even by hearing him speak and shooting these. I also have a video of Obama speaking at the Quad here that I’ve not yet edited or released, so maybe soon I’ll put that one out strictly under the XOLAGRAFIK name.

My favorite part, I think comes at the end of #3, where I was interviewing people about how they felt hearing Obama and what this time meant to them. I smile to see, also, how #1 starts off with people lined up around a huge block waiting for hours to hear Barack Obama speak. Just like the lines at many of the polls today. Clearly, in all this change, something important remains the same.

1

2

3

FEELING THE MOMENTOUSNESS OF THIS TIME I think back, as many others are doing. For I do feel we are on the cusp of great change. I don’t pretend to know what those specifics are, but of this I have no doubt.

My political involvement began, I romantically think to myself, when I was in utero and my mother was nine months pregnant and dancing at a Janis Joplin concert. Which is another way of saying I was born into a time of political upheaval, into the aura and range of politically-conscious music, and into the home(s) and lessons (even when unconscious) of politically aware youth. And as the essays saying “goodbye to Vietnam Era Politics” are noting these days, that time shaped me and my lens and always will to a certain degree. It had something to do with my taking to the streets of NYC in 2004 to protest the criminal Bush administration and GOP as they heinously pranced on the ashes of the WTC for their breathtakingly cynical choice of convention grounds. It has something to do with my focus on encroaching police powers and presence and abuse of the citizens. It has something to do with my resistance to even listening to what the government is saying about most things. It has a lot to do with my being utterly comfortable with that.

I’m not saying that’s all changed now. I’m not going to make some grand sweeping declaration that will embarrass me when the Obama administration decides to fund and thus fully implement Plan Mexico or takes some other disastrous stance that sweeps under the radar of popular notice and opinion but wounds the world, not to mention me and my beliefs and even mi gente y familia. There is much to be concerned about now, nothing is fixed, nothing is settled, nothing is guaranteed. The earth and her People are bleeding and our lives and futures are in danger.

And yet, something has changed. Something is most definitely changing.

This word “hope” that began as the perfect brand with the perfect font and the perfect poster icon and the perfect poster man (“boy” here would feel wrong, even though typically used in this way) is now something else. Has been fleshed out into something else by the stinking, fetid Cheyne-Stokes breathing of the GOP and apparent popular rejection of that stank. McCain and Company have forced a decision, a crux and confrontation. Instead of championing what could have been a return to traditional conservatism or even a Mavericky new Republicanism, Palin/McCain faltered, weakened, listened to dread whispers in the dark of their minds. They decided to unholster the cursed bone horn of Destruction and blow through it as if with a last, desperate, horrific wail that summon the demons and darkness of soul laying inert or anxious within the human condition.

Socialist. Muslim. Marxist. Terrorist. Radical. Communist. Celebrity but Vacuous. Entertaining but Devoid of Substance and Always Dangerous. Not One of Us. Not Like Us. Secretly Planning to Undo Us. They have erected Fear of Other into a towering golem with eyes of blood and fire. THIS IS WHAT WE ARE they say, with their actions every day. But the long-championed Golem turns out to have knees of rubber and an empty skull.

I can’t even keep track of the hateful, ugly, insinuations that have permeated this campaign season. The atmosphere has, at turns, saddened me beyond belief as well as brought me to a boiling point barely contained, and in all cases, fueled my creativity and need to document it all. And in doing so, I have grown a hope of my own. That perhaps this community organizer with a background that inculcates the potential to understand a changed and changing world and culture can be made to listen to the People and not dictate like some Deciders ignorantly and destructively have done prior. He boldly admits he will speak to other (“hated”) leaders. He talks about change from the bottom up. He is nuanced of thought and intelligent and beholden to no extreme line. He believes in talking honestly and earnestly to us. He respects us. He respects himself. He believes in taking risk for what is right. He believes in the importance of Art to a culture—

I have to pause to tear up on that one. Because you see, in being an artist all my life and in studying other cultures (such as when writing my children’s book on Egypt) I realized how little my own country appreciated the only thing that makes me feel I have a purpose in this world. If I have a God, you see, it is the creative force within that speaks to me and shows me worlds and gives me words that seem beyond my own making and ability. My religion is my connection with my art. And the GOP de-funds and despises the arts, injects toxic memes and actions into our culture (such as shutting down controversial exhibits, etc) and has run the nation for too long and thus has made it clear how they see me. Not only as a “Liberal” or “Lefty” or a member of a minority (O, but are us Latin@s really much of a “minority” anymore?) but as an Artist—what I feel is the core of me.

All these things and more give me hope. A real hope. A hope that there is potential now. And when a person believes in potential, s/he will make effort. If one sees no potential to be heard, or to thrive, one eventually does not speak, one withers. And this isn’t about me. This is about all of us. Because our hope and belief that anything could change has been battered and bruised and spat upon and abused. And the effects have been horrific to witness on multiple levels.

More than the predictably vile GOP, I’ve been saddened by those particular “Liberals” who yet resist voting for Obama for reasons they stack up and swear up and down are rational and based in ANYTHING but race…but when examined as a whole, really can only be rooted in racist fear or resistance. (Nuance alert: No, I’m not saying If You Don’t Vote For Obama You Are Racist, Thnx!) The arguments sound somewhat sane and dryly plausible taken longwinded-by-longwinded one…but when put into context of the alternative to a Democrat in the White House and this particular Democrat at this particular time, fall apart.

Even as one imbued with an excess of imagination, I have fallen short. I never imagined that should so many people come to love and believe in and work for an American Presidential Candidate, they would be seen as a cult. Or that the massive crowds would be condemned as reminiscent of Fascism. Or that when a candidate FINALLY actually ran on reducing lobbyists power and instead was mainly funded by citizens’ small but profuse contributions that s/he would be called corrupt for that.

Or, to be honest, that I would live to see this day. A day a man looking and sounding like Obama could or would come this far in our culture and country.

And all of this forces me to rearrange some mental scenery and structures. (Hell, lately I found myself wondering when the first openly gay president would be elected. Now I honestly feel it’s only a matter of time.) I am glad for that. Even as much as I personally strive to be mentally fluid and naturally feel I am a bit unbound by conventional thinking, I am 39. The era of my youth is no more. Even the machines of my youth are antiques or obsolete by now, replaced by Sci-Fi apparatus (Hello, beloved iPhone!). So I am not exempt from a hardening of the thought process. And this shifting all about offers me the chance to open my mind to a degree I did not foresee. I am so grateful for this.

And I hope—here I am with that HOPE again!—I hope that this energy carries on. That we all carry on with this decision to work for a new day and a new way of seeing. A way out of the hate and the fear and the small-minded paradigms that keep us running in circles as we try to spiral up to the Top of the Shining Heap. That we all continue to open our minds and our hearts; that we continue this veering away from the gross, ugly, decrepit, monster of racism. That we marginalize and contain the flailing extremists and white supremacists. That we turn away from this inhuman and anti-human Othering that encourages us to reflexively fear Gays and Transpeople and disabled people and differently-sexed people and Iranians and Asians and Muslims and Iraqis and Venezuelans and Mexicans and yes, still, African Americans.

I hope that Obama’s undocumented Aunt is used by her nephew to show the nation that migrants are not the Dangerous Other, either. What a perfect opportunity! (We know that the People need personal faces and symbols for many positive cultural shifts in awareness, e.g., Karen Carpenter = Anorexia; Michael J. Fox = Parkinsons; Christopher Reeves = Stem Cells, etc). Here we have Zeituni Onyang, a black, undocumented, poor, woman, migrant—pretty much at the bottom of USA heirarchy and for as much, normally given abuse, hate, neglect or simply ignored—and she is a relative of this soon-to-be President! This face/symbol of Obama with the highest favorability rating ever for such a politician, coming in and purportedly ushering forth this era of cultural change. A perfect opportunity. Will Obama rise to the challenge? Because as happy as I am with so much that is coming undone, and coming together, still the conversation about immigrants in this “nation of immigrants” remains woefully untouched and relegated to areas where nobody has to look at it or do much about it, and as a whole only profit from the entire system. This issue is an inescapable step in this new conversation. If we try to go around it, we end up with millions still being exploited and pain and harm still rippling on all levels of our culture. And then all the talk of a new day means nada pero hipocresía. If this dialogue is to be real, if there is, indeed, “No Fake Americans” then there is no reason we are sending these Americans-in-Spirit and Action to detention camps, processing them as criminals when their infractions are civil, and all in order to continue funding our Prison Industrial Complex—and yet still leaving enough in place to prop up our economy.

No reason except the same ones that Palin/McCain have run on.

It is a new day, indeed. I feel it, too. I am working for it, too. Let us come together now and carry this beautiful energy and philosophy that is rising, and let us carry it into all corners of this land. And all lands, while we are dreaming and hoping and planning. Let us first and finally begin to banish these ghosts wringing forth blood from our souls and truly be(come) that New America that we now dare to dream of en masse.

La Lucha Continua.