We're pretty much the same age, similarly overeducated and both raised in predominantly white neighborhoods (but I'd trade Oahu for Hamden, Connecticut, any day of the week). We're both recovering nerds and his meteoric rise was like rocket fuel to my own love life when I was single.
We're both corny, old-fashioned patriots and pretty hawkish for Democrats. I wrote a play about the Tuskegee Airmen that continues to tour around the country and that centers around his historic election. Though I haven't met him since I gave $100 to one of his senatorial fundraisers, the Ivy Buppoisie being only but so big we have more than a few friends in common. I'd like to think that we could be friends.
That doesn't stop me, however, from vociferously criticizing some of the decisions he and his administration have made and their negotiating tactics. I haven't gone down the road of Professor Cornell West but I am concerned, dismayed and depressed by several of the president's positions since taking office.
And hopeful.
It is extremely difficult judging someone whom you feel is so much like yourself. It can't help but make you reflect on your own psyche, your own imperfections. I had one of the most insightful conversations of my life with Stanford's Dean of the School of Education Claude Steele about how difficult it is for black men to pivot from ambitious striver to Head-Negro-In-Charge. The very skills we had to develop to navigate the treacherous waters of white underestimation: the conciliation, the perpetually even temper, the disarming charm are not always the most effective if we ever actually make it to the top of the heap.
The pivot to becoming the "decider," as the president's predecessor put it, the one who no longer has to care so much what everyone below him thinks, is a terrifically hard one to make. It takes time to understand that you no longer have to react to a received reality but with will and constancy you can create a new one.
It's like moving from dancer to DJ.
Our president is clearly one of the brightest to ever hold office. His political team refreshingly, clinically ruthless for Democrats. Despite the many missteps of this first term I am hopeful that in a second, freed from the need to ever again campaign, President Obama will finally help usher in change that we can believe in.
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Same with the smears, lies,attacks and propagnda from talk radio. I know he can't call them out specifically, but where are the people around him to call Rush and Hannity and the other corporate lobbyists disguised as media hosts out when they misinform and make things up out of thin air.
26 percent of R voters STILL believe he was not born here. 12 percent of R voters think he is Muslim.....Call these liars out. Obama has to be clear and strong in his convictions and recognize the opposition party is lead by the likes of Rush Limabaugh. Don't spend a second on trying to compromise or on bipartisanship because their main goal is to see him fail.
Sharpton went a step further, during a 60 Minutes interview this Spring: "...if he finds fault with Mr. Obama, he'd be aiding those who want to destroy him. So he has decided not to criticize the president about anything..."
Professor Ellis, would you still be "hopeful" if the President were Hillary?
Exactly.
I would suggest that we have to get past every "ism" out there, including racism.
Because the real issue is class warfare, and the rich (including Obama) don't care about the race or sex or sexual preference of the Medicare and Social Security recipients whose lives they are about to ruin.
It's all of us against them. And they're winning.
Wouldn't that be a question best posed to congress?? Cause as I remember it...and I am..and will always be a democrat...but our democrats..yes in both houses...really dragged their feet in a lot of ways...until the lame duck session last year.
It's great - you got to ride the "Obama wave" for essentially getting laid. How proud your parents must be. The concerns I have are that an educated man as yourself didn't recognize who, how and what was behind Obama's meteoric rise. As for your comment about him being "bright," I must disagree. When his only strength is to play the blame game, or campaign continuously without regard to the real agenda back home, Houston, we have a problem. In some circles it's known as the "burn rate."
Obama caved when he did not have to, on the three most important issues of the day: The bush tax cuts, the Debt ceiling, and the recess appointments.
He's a sellout. Charming and intelligent as he is. Sorry.
The CPC needs to leave the corrupt and doomed Democratic party NOW, there will never be a better time. Please give us a real liberal chioce!