Epic Banality

It looks like Barack Obama is going to be the next president of the United States, despite the propaganda that’s been spewing from the right wing nut-jobs out there who are terrified of a “black” and/or “Muslim” president. You know the types, the kind who drink the FOX News Kool-Aid, think that Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are real news people and think that the so-called “war hero” status of John McCain entitles him to do or say whatever he likes regardless of how ridiculous and wrong it is. Before you MSNBC hipsters get too excited, let me remind you that there’s certainly more than one brand and flavor of Kool-aid.

For the record, I don’t buy the “Muslim” bit. It’s that simple. As someone who is opposed to socialism it’s not difficult for me to find reasons not to like our up and coming commander-in-chief. I don’t need to turn him into some imaginary boogieman. His policies are antithetical to mine, but then again so were John McCain’s. Furthermore, Obama’s true “character” was revealed in all of its bought-and-paid-for glory in two votes: FISA and the bailout. Underneath all the rhetoric of hope and change, it’s simply the same as it ever was. Except for one little thing: Barack Obama is black. Well, kind of.

Race has been a huge part of this election. Say what you like, but Obama gained and lost a huge a number of votes based purely on the color of his skin. I can’t blame him for that though, it’s not like he forced Americans to think racially but the fact of the matter is that they do. The blight of racism, as demonstrated by this election, is alive and well on the streets of America. What’s more interesting though isn’t that all the southern hate mongers and conservative cranks came out of the woodwork with their slurs and their rumors. We tend to expect that from those people.

What is interesting is that Barack Obama is half black. Or, as a close friend of mine puts it, he’s a “Halfrican.”

Why is that interesting? Am I implying that he’s not “really black” or that if he was “all black” he couldn’t have won? No. Barack Obama is as much white as he is black though, yet the only half that gets any media recognition and the only half that seems to matter in the political minefield is the black half. He’ll be the 1st “black president” just as much as he’ll be the 44th “white president.” What this demonstrates, from top to bottom, is how stupid the concept of race is in the first place and how ancestry matters far less to people than obvious things like skin tone. In the minds of America, and much further I’m sure, Obama is black because he looks it, plain and simple. He’s a “role model” to other people who think he looks similar. It’s ridiculous. Any way you slice it, it’s moronic—just as moronic as the labels “black” and “white” are to start with.

Regardless of whether you love, hate, agree or disgree with our new President-elect make sure you do so based on his views, policies and actions and not because of the amount of melanin in his skin.

Barack Obama doesn’t represent change. He represents the same old, same old with a different coat of paint. All too many people though are fooled by simple window dressing. As I said before, it’s the same as it ever was. (Although, I’m cautiously optimistic about the future not leading to a full scale invasion of Iran and the fact that I don’t think my skin will crawl from sheer humiliation as an American when he gives a State of the Union like it did with the last clown we had. There are a few upsides to this… I hope.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 10:34 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.