Dear Mr. President

Dear President Obama,

As a black person, who was born and raised in this country, seeing you elected as President of the United States brought tears to my eyes. There I was, at roughly 12am EST, on the night of November 6, 2008, crying right along with Oprah and Jessie. I have never been as proud to be an American citizen as I was at that moment. I recognize that you will be a little busy solving the economic crisis and trying to rescue our country from the brink of another Great Depression; but if you find yourself with a free moment do you think you could do me three small favors?

1. Would you kindly pass an executive order promising that the US Census will no longer ask black people to classify themselves as Negroes? Frankly, I find it to be extremely insulting.
   
2. Please apologize to the entire world for the last eight years. It would be nice if I didn’t have to be too embarrassed to travel outside the United States.
   
3. Declare the day that George W. Bush leaves office a national holiday. I don’t think that I can stress enough what a monumental event that will be. Make sure you burn sage throughout the White House to get rid of all those nasty vibes.
   

You’ve got a lot of late nights and hard work ahead of you Mr. President. May the force be with you!!!

HarlemHarangue

Negro? Please! (Part II)

So I’ve been rather irate about the whole “Black, African American, Negro” thing for a couple weeks now and I think I finally found an appropriate solution. First, let me make it clear that I attempted to take a more mature avenue…

Brain Leher, who hosts a show on NPR, had Hillary Clinton on as a guest to discuss the bailout. He asked listeners to call in and describe ways in which the credit crunch was personally affecting them. I called and made up some phony scenario about my credit limits being cut and begged Mr. Leher to ask Senator Clinton why black people are still classified as negroes on the census. Sufficed to say, my question never got answered by Mrs. Clinton.

Since my Senator is too busy bailing out Wall Street to care and Representative Rangel was too busy worrying about paying his back taxes to notice that his constituents were being called negroes, I’ve come up with my own form of protest…

I’m going to fill out my census and turn it in negro time!    !!

 

 

Negro? Please!

I just got my census in the mail and I want to know why African Americans are still categorized as Negroes on the United States Census!

The Great Debate

Last night’s presidential debate, broadcast live in 55 countries, was no game changer. Barak Obama appeared collected and presidential while McCain, agitated and condescending at times did an excellent job at appealing to his base.

Both candidates managed to avoid really addressing the financial crisis. While both men advocated spending cuts, neither discussed where they would cut spending when 40% of the budget is allotted to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. McCain suggested a spending freeze and Barak Obama impressed upon the American people the importance and urgency of a financial bailout.

When asked about how they would deal with the potential nuclear threat posed by Iran, both candidates were bellicose in their response. Obama, however, supports meeting with Irani heads of state and negotiating peace. McCain, in his most condescending tone, called this suggestion “dangerous”, and accused Obama of being naïve, and legitimizing the ideas of a rogue state by agreeing to negotiate with them. Obama called McCain’s accusations preposterous and cited former Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissenger as a supporter of his ideas.

As expected, much of the debate was centered on Iraq. McCain continued to insist that the surge in Iraq has been successful while Obama continued to remind him that a surge would have been unnecessary if we weren’t in Iraq in the first place. Jim Leher, the moderator, asked the candidates what lessons we have learned from the war. John McCain, a Vietnam veteran, responded that the lessons from both Vietnam and Iraq are that we cannot bring our troops home defeated. The gloves came off when Obama said that the US shouldn’t have ever been in Iraq and that the United States military should have finished the job in Afghanistan and crossed the Pakistani border in an effort to locate and destroy Al Qaeda cells operating in that nation. McCain insisted that it was blatantly irresponsible for Obama to threaten Pakistan in such a way but was quickly reminded by his democratic opponent of the incident in which he so flippantly threatened to bomb Iran to the tune of the Beach Boys.

All in all the debate was rather boring and it really didn’t make any waves nor was it the kind of debate that will change any minds.

Dodging Depression

Last night the United States government took over Washington Mutual and sold it, piecemeal, to JP Morgan Chase, in the largest savings and loan bailout in US history. Much of the Washington Mutual’s troubles, like that of many other banks, were caused by defaults on high risk mortgages as well as a dramatic drop in the value of WAMU stocks over the past months.

Simultaneously, the Democrats and Republicans were busy reaching no agreement at the White House in their endeavours to bail out the rest of the nations financial institutions. Rumor has it that the gathering was actually reduced to a shouting match when the Republicans revolted against their own President by proposing a new plan that was contrary to his and, as a result, absolutely nothing was solved. At best, the solution will be our tax dollars going to purchase bad assets from the banks in order to prevent them from going belly up. If only Warren Buffet would bailout all of the banks and not just Goldman Sachs.

As our most prestigious financial institutions crumble around us, and consumer confidence is at an all time low, and retailers predict the slowest shopping season ever, the rest of us just bite our nails and pray that we are able to dodge the next Great Depression.

I’m Back

Well folks, after a long and arduous summer in California…I’m back! It’s amazing how different two regions of the same country can be. Your girl was so bored out in the deserts of Cali that she got her license to bear arms. Now i realize that all those gun nuts out there aren’t staunch defenders of the second amendment, so much as they are so crazed by the unending monotony of everyday life that they feel compelled to pick up a gun and shoot something.

When I stepped out of the taxi i literally kissed the streets of Harlem. I know that it sounds disgusting and I immediately wiped my mouth with an alcohol swab that I had handy, but those of you who have yet to see the hidden wonders of america just don’t understand how lucky we are to live in NYC.

Here is a brief list of things that i won’t miss about California:

Trailer trash, spiders, lizards, 110 degree days, roaches that are as big as out waterbugs, spiders, and gun toting ignorant bigots. Oh and did i mention the trailer trash and the spiders?

Adios Cali! Even though I’ll miss the Mexican food, drinks by the pool and the shooting range I’ll take crack heads, subways and bodega’s anyday.

“So?!”

For the first time in my life I witnessed the day when “The View” scooped “The Today Show” and every single major newspaper in the United States. Barbara Walters, bless her heart, was the only reporter on a major network news station who even mentioned a recent program in which Vice President (and considering the disgrace our current VP has brought upon the office, it pains me to put those letters in Caps) Dick Cheney was interviewed on the anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. As he went on his usual diatribe about how he believes we are winning the war; making any sane American wonder if the man is suffering from some sort of senility, the woman interviewing him asked him how he could possibly feel that way when 2/3 of the American people think that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake.  His response, ladies and gentlemen, was, “So.”

Uh, so? We invaded another country under false pretenses and assassinated (yes I said it) it’s president. Countless brave, promising, young American men and women have given their lives and their limbs to a lie. There have been hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties, most of them innocent citizens. We have created a virtual hornets nest of Al-Qaeda cells where once, none existed; and have permanently destroyed America’s image in the eyes of the world and probably god. Our economy is in the toilet, we have plummeted into a national debt that our great grandchildren will still be paying off, every New Yorker has to board a subway, cross a bridge, or strap into an airplane with a sense of trepidation, and this pompous, evil animal has the audacity to say, “So.”

 Instead of reporting this story yesterday, the Rupurt Murdoch political machine printed countless stories about David Patterson’s multiple affairs. Since his infidelity isn’t killing people and lying to his wife isn’t an impeachable offense…So!

“No, I cannot call you ‘&*@#$&'”

It’s bad enough that women everywhere are doomed to settle for the bare minimum. If you can find a man who actually files taxes, doesn’t live with his mother, offers to take you on a date before trying to get into your pants, and whose girlfriend won’t call you the next day asking you how you know her boo; by today’s standards, you’re doing pretty damn good. Since all the lovely ladies out there are obviously fighting an uphill battle, do guys have to make it more unpleasant by insisting upon introducing themselves with some simple ass street name. “Nice to meet you my name is ‘whatever‘ but you can call me ‘so and so‘”.

 To all the men out there here’s your answer: NO THE HELL I CANNOT! There is nothing more obscene than someone who is so blatantly arrogant that they have an alias or refer to themselves in the third person. And what is the alias for in the first damn place? Somehow i doubt that a secret agent a would be looking for anyone in PJs and even if they were, they certainly wouldn’t run around the bar introducing themselves as ‘Dangerous‘ or ‘Killer Mike‘ because that wouldn’t be very clandestine. Superheroes have integrity and should be too busy fighting crime to troll bars for inebriated, potential slides.  Even rappers have figured out that it’s probably more appropriate when you’re 30 years or older to refer to yourself by your given name. That just about covers every legitimate excuse for renaming oneself, so the only viable reason for anyone else to have an alias is pure hubris.

Listen all arrogant jackasses: If Nelson Mandela can calls himself Nelson, and William Clinton calls himself Bill; then ‘Dangerous‘, ‘Killer Mike‘ and ‘Crime Life‘ should just stick to Chris, Michael and Douglass.

“and i think to myself…what a wonderful world”

I would venture to guess that just about every black person in the United States, rather, every black person on earth wished they lived on the same planet as Geraldine Ferraro. Just to be clear she did say,

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position…And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.” (Daily Breeze, 07, March 2008)

Wouldn’t black people world wide love it if being black actually put them at an advantage. Imagine walking into a department store and the salesperson follows you around to actually help you, not to make sure that you’re not stealing. Or, check this out. What if Driving While Black (DWB) didn’t mean that you often ended up curbside while the police tore apart your car, but instead meant that if you were caught speeding you would be let off with a warning? Or even better, what if your uncle was a judge and could make all of your speeding tickets disappear? Suppose for a moment, that taxi’s actually stopped for you late at night when you were headed uptown. What if you could reach into your back pocket to grab your keys or get into a minor fender bender after your bachelor party without the police riddling you with bullets?

You know why no one really cares about who the first white governors of Utah , or New Jersey, New York, Rhoad Island, California, Montana or any of the other fifty states are? Because in Forty-Nine of them, every governor has been white.

What makes the success of Barak Obama’s campaign so significant is that he has been able to transcend the stigma of being the “black candidate” and has instead become a presidential candidate who appeals to the masses. Perhaps, he would lead Mrs. Clinton by a larger margin if he were a white man.

O Canada

I’m not really sure what upsets me more. The fact that Ralph Nader announced his candidacy for president or that there are millions of idiots who are going to be stupid enough to vote for him. Granted, Jeb Bush’s mistress did assist George in  the 2000 election; but were it not for Ralph Nader, it wouldn’t have mattered how many old, Jewish people “voted” for Pat Buchanan.

Imagine how different the world would be if Al Gore had been president. September 11 may never have happened. Our kids would be going to college instead of going to die in Iraq. Americans could travel the world without being sneered at. And most importantly our president wouldn’t have been the butt of every stupid joke told in the last eight years.

I suppose it is partially the public’s fault. After-all, a significant portion of the population did want George W for president in spite of the fact that he thought the Taliban was a rock group before they so lethally reminded us that they are a bunch of crazy fundamentalists.

So now, when we as a nation have an opportunity to elect a respectable man/woman for president, here comes Ralph. I often wonder if he is a consumer advocate or a mole who’s ultimate goal is to keep republicans in office indefinitely.

 If Mr. Nader’s candidacy results in John McCain (someone who supports the war that is destroying our country and killing our kids, and someone who was quoted as saying that he doesn’t know much about economics in the midst of a recession) i’m carrying my ass to Canada. I would much rather brave the cold than face another four years of collective stupidity.