Words From a Wicked Woman

Recording artist will.i.am and director Jesse Dylan, son of singer/icon Bob Dylan, got together with a group of musicians, actors and personalities over the course of two days to mold music written by the Black Eyed Peas founder to words from Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s New Hampshire “Yes We Can” speech into a song of hope, unity and inspiration. It is a video that sends chills down the spine of the jaded and brings tears to the eyes of cynics. Best of all, will.i.am, Dylan and friends did all of this unbidden. This video, and its making, is indicative of the inspiration Obama engenders.

Today is known throughout the country as “Super Tuesday.” Democrats, Republicans and Independents across 24 states will go to the polls to vote for the candidate they want to see as their party’s presidential nominee. The reasons any one person will cast their vote for a particular candidate are myriad, however, I would like to discuss a few of the reasons Barack Obama has inspired so many people and deserves your support.

Barack Obama can change the status quo

Washington is a mess. There’s no getting around it. Legislators are often unresponsive to their constituents’ desires, instead, preferring to grant the wishes of lobbyists and other big campaign donors; very little gets accomplished in Congress because of inter- and intra-party spats and rivalries; there is no unifying vision of where this country needs to go, and; even when there is unity of purpose and vision, there is someone in the White House determined to stand in the way. Today, when many people think of Washington, D.C., they think of a quagmire of lost hope.

Those who support Obama are tired of politics as usual and believe he brings a singular freshness. He is an African-American elected by a largely white, moderate to conservative majority in Illinois because he has a vision of what this country can be. He hasn’t been in and around Washington for decades adding to the morass on Capitol Hill, making it what it is. Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison captured the essence of Obama’s value to this country when she wrote in a letter to the senator, “[I]n addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don’t see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom.”

That wisdom was born, in part, because he is America–multiracial, multicultural and multiethnic–the beautiful quilt of this country’s lost amibition. As such, he brings a view that is more expansive and inclusive than we’ve seen before. It is a view that says we can be gracious and talk to those we don’t like (and who don’t like us) instead of pointing a gun at them first and that we must engage countries and people to bring about progress. According to Obama, “On challenges ranging from terrorism to disease, nuclear weapons to climate change, we cannot make progress unless we can draw on strong international support.” Yes we can.

Barack Obama can bring people together

Obama truly believes all people really are created equal and that blacks, browns, yellows and reds can work together to enable this country to reach its potential. In an election cycle that has been marred by racial code intended to inflame, it is time to see beyond the divisiveness of racial politics. That does not mean we should forget our heritage. Indeed, we must acknowledge and celebrate our different cultures, but not allow them to trap us into a mental, spiritual, intellectual OR gender ghetto that separates us from our common goals.

Much has been made of the notion that Latinos will not support Obama in California and the rest of the Southwest because there is a rivalry between blacks and browns. However, the people who have posited this theory forget the reality that Obama has been endorsed by the nation’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, La Opinion, saying:

Senator Barack Obama represents fundamental change in a campaign in which ‘change’ has become a central theme. Obama’s approach to immigration and his inspiring vision are what the country need to break through the current feeling of political malaise.

. . .

It is this commitment to the immigration issue which drove Obama to condemn the malicious lies made during the immigration debate, to understand the need for driver’s licenses, and to defend the rights of undocumented students by co-authoring the DREAM Act. The senator has demonstrated character by maintaining his position despite the hostile political climate.

. . .

We need a leader today that can inspire and unite America again around its greatest possibilities. Barack Obama is the right leader for the time.

The senator’s hometown Spanish-language newspaper, La Hoy, also endorsed him. This is the first time the Chicago newspaper has endorsed any presidential candidate. “The son of an immigrant father and an American mother, Obama knows the challenges facing those deprived of privileges, when facing the uphill climb to success. . . . The Senator is capable of compromising with those who think differently, and has the strength to renew the hopes of those who have come to this country in search of a better life. . . . We, the Latinos, are a mostly young population, with great dreams and hunger for success. For that reason we consider that Barack Obama is the Democratic Party’s best option, to give back to the country a national unity that includes Hispanic talent.”

As La Hoy mentioned, Obama not only brings people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds together, but also those of different ideologies. It is, perhaps, one of his most defining qualities. As he noted in his South Carolina victory speech, “[Obama supporters] are Democrats from Des Moines and independents from Concord and, yes, some Republicans from rural Nevada.” In the very speech from which the above video was made, he emphasizes the diversity of his coalition but says the thing they all have in common is they are people who, “are tired of the division and distraction that has clouded Washington, who know that we can disagree without being disagreeable, who understand that, if we mobilize our voices to challenge the money and influence that stood in our way and challenge ourselves to reach for something better, there is no problem we cannot solve, there is no destiny that we cannot fulfill.” We can be–we must be–a UNITED States of America. Yes we can.

Barack Obama can end the Iraq War

According to Antiwar.com, there have been 3945 U.S. casualties since the Iraq War began March 19, 2003; 3806 of those have come since President George W. Bush arrogantly and foolishly stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier and declared “Mission accomplished!” on May 1, 2003. In stark contrast to anyone else running for either party’s presidential nomination, Barack Obama has never supported the war.

At an anti-war rally held in Chicago on October 2, 2002, then-State Senator Barack Obama made the following remarks:

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east (sic), and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

I encourage reading entire speech here.

In the wee hours of October 11, 2002, Sen. Hillary Clinton, the other candidate for the Democratic party presidential nomination, in bold relief to Obama’s position, voted to send American troops into Iraq, thus beginning the Iraq War. Literally minutes prior to her vote authorizing the war, she voted against the Levin amendment to the authorization. The Levin amendment would have reigned the administration in and encouraged it to work with other nations before then coming back to Congress to ask for authorization. For a full discussion of the Levin amendment see my previous post “Obama Cordially Hangs Clinton on Iraq in Pre-Super Tuesday Debate.”

Obama has offered a plan to bring one or two brigades a month home from Iraq with full withdrawal completed within 16 months. Clinton will not commit to a timetable even though she says that she now favors ending the war.

Although Obama wants to end the Iraq War, he stated in the February 2, 2008 Los Angeles debate with Clinton, “I think it is important for us to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. . . . but I do think it is important for us to set a date. And the reason I think it is important is because if we are going to send a signal to the Iraqis that we are serious, and prompt the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds to actually come together and negotiate, they have to have clarity about how serious we are.” We must get out of Iraq as carefully as possible and as soon as possible. Yes We Can.

In Conclusion

For some candidates, this presidential campaign season began years ago. And, for some, it has ended too soon. I think we can all agree that parts of it have been extremely ugly, but there have also been times that have inspired hope where once there was none. Those latter times have, most often, been inspired by Barack Obama–a uniquely transformative agent of aspiration and change. He looks at this country and its people and sees what is possible with faith, belief in ourselves and a generous spirit. He rejects the politics of fear which turns into the politics of “mean.” As a result, people are valuable not because they are of a particular race, ethnicity, gender, income status or sexual orientation. They are valuable because they are human beings who deserve to be heard and counted.

Today is almost at an end. If you live in a Super Tuesday state and you have not voted yet, please do so. But, before you pull that lever or press a touchscreen or fill in a bubble, realize that today is a new day. It is a day when we have a chance to propose a man with the courage to dream, the belief that we can be better than we are and the audacity of hope. He did not sit in the Senate in Washington wringing his hands, wondering what he should do while we languished in malaise. Instead, on February 10, 2007, on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln once called on a divided nation to stand together, Sen. Barack Obama entered the race for president of the United States and asked us to stand together with him to change this country and the world. Some say that he should wait his turn, that he hasn’t paid his dues and that he doesn’t have the experience. They expect him to defer to others who, frankly, don’t have the vision or skills to be a unifying force to correct the mistakes made by the current administration. Instead, he saw that waiting would only allow the country to sink deeper into the abyss, making recovery that much harder. He understood what Martin Luther King, Jr. called in his “I Have A Dream” speech the “urgency of now.”

The reality is that the differences between Clinton and Obama are few. Nevertheless, they are significant. In my mind, perhaps the most astounding difference overall is that the latter can unite while the former has a disturbing tendency to divide and to do so in a profoundly ugly way. In this new day that is today, we need to put aside our racial, cultural, ethnic and gender politics in favor of moving this country forward in a healthy way that will restore our prestige throughout the world. It will take boldness, courage, imagination and brilliance. Barack Obama has those characteristics in abundance. He believes: Yes we can! ¡Sí se puede! I believe, with your vote today: Yes, we can win!

Technorati Tags: activism, african-american, barack obama, blacks, campaign ‘08, candidates, celebrities, democratic, entertainment, hillary clinton, iraq war, politics, presidential campaign

I suppose it had to happen at some point, but I kept telling myself that he could make it to the Democratic convention and then barter for a position in the Obama White House. Alas, it was not to be. John Edwards, that stalwart advocate for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised, dropped out of the race Wednesday after winning only 62 of the 452 convention delegates awarded through January 29 and no primaries or caucuses. The party requires 2,025 to secure the nomination.

In the end, the numbers just weren’t there to win the nomination even if, by some miracle, Edwards had won all the delegates in all 24 February 5th primary states. For that matter, neither could his opponents, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They, however, had more of a headstart and momentum in their favor.

“He wanted to have a shot at being president,” said Joe Trippi, a senior adviser, in a New York Times article. “He wanted to have a chance to change people’s lives, not be a spoiler or a kingmaker and not play political games.”

That’s just the kind of guy Edwards is. He has a great deal of integrity. If he was in the race, he was in it to win and no one need worry about any ulterior motives. Edwards could be counted on to tell the straightforward truth. As he famously stated during the South Carolina Democratic debate, he represented the “grown-up” wing of the Democratic Party.

Although I subsequently decided to support Obama, it took me over a year to make up my mind. Until a few days ago, I leaned heavily toward Edwards because he most closely shared my values. I moved away from that support because, as much as I liked him (and I liked him a lot) Edwards did not inspire others the way Obama did. Obama shared the vast majority of Edwards’ values and managed to move people to action.

Be that as it may, I am very sorry to see John Edwards’ dream come to an end and wish him and his family well. It is my hope that the next Democratic administration realizes how lucky it would be to have him in its Cabinet. Now, it’s time to figure out how his 62 delegates and other supporters will re-align their allegiances. Let the bidding begin!

Those Wacky New Yorkers

John Edwards wasn’t the only potential presidential nominee to hang up his track shoes. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who led Republican polls even before he announced his candidacy for the party’s nomination in February 2006, finally figured out that he had to actually work to get people to vote for him. For some inexplicable reason, Giuliani honestly believed that all he had to do was sit in Florida as primaries and caucuses went on in other parts of the country and wait. “Wait for what?” you ask. Wait for the media and voters to rediscover that he’s there and, in the latter case, cast their votes for him–something they didn’t do in droves last Tuesday when he garnered a third-place finish behind challengers John McCain and Mitt Romney. In the seven Republican pre-convention contests thus far, Giuliani has secured exactly one delegate out of the 208 awarded. The GOP requires 1,191 to secure the nomination. Perhaps he was really sitting in Florida and waiting for more of whatever illicit drug he’s so clearly imbibing and that’s why he couldn’t get off his butt to campaign. Giuliani has endorsed Sen. John McCain.

Apparently, Rudy was in the mood to share his drugs because Marcia Pappas, head of the New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), has got it into her head that Senator Ted Kennedy has “betrayed” women by endorsing Obama instead of Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Any partial quote of the chapter’s January 28 press release would not do her diatribe justice, so I will quote it in total:

Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, and the Family and Medical Leave Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). “They” are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). “They” are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future.

This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation- to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who “know what’s best for us.

There are plenty of very valid reasons not to support Clinton that have nothing to do with her being a woman. There are plenty of people of both sexes who don’t want to see a female president, but Ted Kennedy isn’t among them. There are at least an equal number of people who don’t want to see a black president. Let’s not fall into the trap of comparing -isms. To do so is often counter-productive and diminishes the hardships that all of us who are not straight, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, Judeo-Christian males face.

I am very pleased to say that cooler heads have prevailed at the national office of NOW. In a contrasting press release also released January 28, the group’s president, Kim Gandy stated:

The National Organization for Women has enormous respect and admiration for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D- Mass.). For decades Sen. Kennedy has been a friend of NOW, and a leader and fighter for women’s civil and reproductive rights, and his record shows that.

Though the National Organization for Women Political Action Committee has proudly endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton for president, we respect Sen. Kennedy’s endorsement. We continue to encourage women everywhere to express their opinions and exercise their right to vote.

The Huffington Post has an interview with Pappas here.

Technorati Tags: african-american, barack obama, blacks, campaign ‘08, candidates, democratic, endorsement, hillary clinton, john edwards, nonprofits, now, politics, presidential campaign

Anyone who knows me personally knows that the word “hope” is, for me, something to be talked about on Sunday mornings in church by someone either far too animated or far too monotonous to garner anything other than my detachment so early in the day. It is a word pregnant with desire based on inchoate facts and often placed beside that similarly-founded concept, “faith.” Neither are words that enter my speech very often. That is not to say that I don’t have beliefs and a belief system because I do. However, my beliefs are based on cold, hard, existential fact or a reasonable gut feeling based on some unconscious intangible only apparent in hindsight. This is who I am and I make no apologies.

Be that as it may, lately, the words “hope” and “faith” have begun to appear at the edges of my awareness as though dredged up from some repressed memory. More importantly, the words have brought with them their attendant concepts, bidden as they were by my growing attention to the campaign of U.S. Senator Barack Obama and the palpable hope for fruitful change his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination brings. Those concepts were never more present than today as I watched the Democratic Party’s most revered presence, Senator Edward “Teddy” Kennedy, and his niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of slain president John F. Kennedy, pass the torch of history to this younger man from a background completely and totally different than their own. In endorsing Obama’s candidacy, they consecrated the hopes, dreams and beliefs of someone who knows in his soul that we, as people and as Americans, can be better than we’ve been in far too long. These are the same hopes, dreams and beliefs shared by another man familiar to them, felled by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

A Los Angeles Times article said of today’s endorsement event, “With Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, President Kennedy’s daughter, and his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), at his side and with other members of the Kennedy family in the audience, Ted Kennedy rhetorically placed the mantle of his brother’s legacy on Obama’s shoulders.” According to the article, Kennedy went on to coax, “‘Have the courage to choose change . . . . It is time now for a new generation of leadership. It is time for Barack Obama.’”

For those of us over 40, the symbolism of all those Kennedys on stage and in the audience today doing what they’d never done before–endorse an “outside” candidate almost en masse–was unmistakably powerful. They are the closest this country comes to political royalty. Depending on where one falls in the 40+ age bracket, we are either old enough to remember JFK ourselves or his death was fresh enough to have required study of him as an agent of change. He was the hope of his generation. I remember learning about him as a child beginning in elementary school in the late 60s and early 70s. By the time I’d reached high school, there was enough distance to have a greater appreciation for his legacy, especially as it flowed from the early civil rights work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and included the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed just months after his assassination.

JFK was not the only Kennedy to attain legendary status. Not far away in our consciousness today was his younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, attorney general under both John and Lyndon B. Johnson, the man who succeeded him. In time, history may consider Bobby even more instrumental in this country’s civil rights movement than his brother. It was Bobby who, as a candidate for the 1968 Democratic Party presidential nomination, aroused even more hope, faith and aspiration than his older brother–perhaps because, then, they were more needed. Sadly, like his brother, he was never able to reach his full potential as a leader. He was taken from the world by Sirhan Sirhan on June 4, 1968 in Los Angeles while leaving a campaign event. Teddy, the only surviving brother, inherited the mantle and, as such, it is his to give. At 76-years-old, still a master politician and tireless force, he chose to bestow his brothers’ legacy on a half-Kenyan, half-white junior senator from the Midwest who may just be the transcendent embodiment of the greatness that can be our future.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg was first introduced to the country as the oldest child of then-Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his beautiful, socialite wife Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Those of a certain age remember a famous photograph of Caroline astride a pony not so many years after her father’s death–a father who was taken from her only five days before her sixth birthday. Now, she is a mother herself. Indeed, it was her teenaged children who first alerted her to Obama’s potential to turn politics as we know it on its head, thereby leading this country out of the morass in which we currently find ourselves.

In the January 27, 2008 New York Times op-ed piece “A President Like My Father,” Kennedy Schlossberg writes:

I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.

. . .

I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

There is no doubt that Teddy knew his brother better, but Caroline knew the person he was in her heart. Having a parent die while a child is still very young tends to forever crystalize that parent in the best possible light. There was no time for the child to experience the parent as a flawed human being. The only thing the child knows is that the person who died was someone he or she loved, regardless of whether that parent deserved the child’s love. By all accounts, no matter what one chooses to say about later revelations concerning JFK’s habitual adultery or ties to organized crime, he was a very good father. That is the person Caroline knows and that is the person whose legacy she’s spent her life protecting. Consequently, that she would join (and perhaps lead) her uncle in bestowing most of the family’s blessing on Obama is profound.

Obama is nothing if not inspiring. Most of us first heard of him when he delivered an eloquent keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention introducing the party’s presidential candidate, U.S. Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts. At the time, Obama was merely the Democratic candidate for the senate seat he now holds, but his ability to move an audience was easily as keen as someone who’d been before a national audience for decades. In a speech punctuated by applause on countless occasions, he said in part, “Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy; our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . . that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ That is the true genius of America, a faith.”

He did not refer to religious faith, although I’m sure that was tangential to his meaning as well, but to faith that we are better than we believe ourselves to be and that we are better than we’ve shown ourselves to be. It is a faith that we, as a nation, can uphold the ideals on which this country was founded. It doesn’t matter that the Founding Fathers were only referring to white males when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution because time has shown that their tenets must apply to us all if any of us are to achieve.

In that same 2004 speech, Obama enumerated the things that bring us together as opposed to tear us apart the way so many have done toward their own ends:

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.

Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America.

There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.

We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?

As I watched that speech so many years ago, I knew that we would be hearing from this young, kind of funny-looking guy from Illinois again. Neither I nor anyone else had an inkling we’d be hearing from him a scant three years later on the steps of the Illinois statehouse announcing that he planned to run for president of the United States.

In a February 10, 2007 address announcing his candidacy, Obama said:

It was here, in Springfield, where North, South, East and West come together that I was reminded of the essential decency of the
American people — where I came to believe that through this decency, we can build a more hopeful America.

And that is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a house divided to stand together, where
common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United
States of America.

Now listen, I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness — a certain audacity — to this announcement. I know I haven’t spent a
lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.

The genius of our founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed. And we should take heart, because
we’ve changed this country before. In the face of tyranny, a band of patriots brought an Empire to its knees. In the face of
secession, we unified a nation and set the captives free. In the face of Depression, we put people back to work and lifted millions
out of poverty. We welcomed immigrants to our shores, we opened railroads to the west, we landed a man on the moon, and we
heard a King’s call to let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what’s needed to be done. Today we are called once more — and it
is time for our generation to answer that call.

For that is our unyielding faith — that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.

The Obama campaign has two ubiquitous themes: the impossible is possible, and; change. Some, including a former president, dismiss him as some kind of modern day Don Quixote, naïve and fanciful. To do so is to ignore his experience as a community organizer, the brilliance of his mind, his imagination, the power of his convictions and his ability to persuade others to follow his lead. Barack Obama is the real deal that comes along, perhaps, once in a generation, if that often. We have had the often necessary battles with those who disagree. We have worn ourselves out trying to avoid fatal wounds for politics these days is a blood sport. Right now, this country is barely solvent in spirit and resources. We are at a crossroads where we can choose to continue with the same ideologies and policies that got us into this quagmire or we can reach out for something new. In my opinion, those who dismiss Obama and his candidacy as naïve and fanciful are content to have us remain on the same mentally, intellectually and spiritually exhausting path to nowhere in the arrogant belief that no one but those who have been around Washington for decades contributing to the mess have the right or ability to govern. They fail to understand that something is deeply broken and they are the ones who broke it. As a result of the damage they have wrought, our country is dispirited and disengaged. Those attitudes must change.

This country has been battered from within and without. We are in a war that seems as though it will never end and criticism of that war will often be labeled as “unpatriotic.” We live in a country where people disappear because they might have something to do with supposed terrorists. “Renditioned” is the term, meaning that they are taken to another country and tortured. If they are lucky, they may come back to their homes and families. If not, they end up at Guantanamo Bay for years on end, never charged with any crime. Those practices must change.

We have allowed those in charge to prey on our fears, manipulating us into acquiescing as they ignore our rights and invent extra-judicial and extra-constitutional rights for themselves. As I write this post, the current president is about to commit this country to military bases in a foreign land in something close to perpetuity without the consent of Congress. In his mind, this is his right to do even though the Constitution states that the Senate has to ratify all treaties. This is the same president who has repeatedly by-passed courts of competent jurisdiction to tap the phones of so-called “terrorists” and spied on the web browsing habits of millions of American citizens. He and his minions know no shame. Change must be foisted upon them.

It is time for those of us who are tired to stand up and say, “Enough!” It is time for those of us who are embarrassed by the narrow-minded folly of this administration’s actions throughout the world to believe that there must be a different, better way of doing things and to say, “No more!” It is time for those of us who cringe at the thought of one more State of the Union address delivered by a mental midget who thrives on lifting the rich up even as he stands on the backs of the poor and middle-class to use our collective leverage to stand up and throw the oppressors off, vowing to never allow these sorry circumstances to happen again. It is time to change our feelings of helplessness and despair to empowerment because we do have the ability to shape who we want to be.

It is time for us to learn how to hope. I do not advocate hoping based on nothing but a groundless desire that someone do what we want them to do or that circumstances become more favorable to our wishes. Instead, I advocate that others do as I have done. I have dispassionately looked at my choice of candidates and what each can offer in light of the world in which we find ourselves. I gathered as much information as possible in order to make a cogent decision based on facts. As reasoned as I would like to be, there are variables that cannot be solved because the future cannot accurately be foretold. Hence, we are left to our individual instincts and best judgment. In my reasoning, for example, the fact that Obama wants to bring Americans together is secondary to my desire that someone encourage and persuade the rest of the country to move to the Left because I believe that is where we, as a country, will be better off. To successfully do that, yes, it is in our interest that there is widespread agreement on this direction. Furthermore, I share the belief that we, as a individuals, must give back to others be they locally, regionally, nationally or in other parts of the world. We have been shifted back to the selfishness that was so prevalent in the 80s by a government based on the greed of a few and I believe that attitude has lead to a great many of the problems we face domestically and in our foreign policy. In this equation, the “hope” is that Barack Obama has the skills necessary to lead us into a new age of benevolence toward ourselves and toward the rest of the planet. Given his proven ability to make us want to be better than we are so far, I do not believe my hope is misplaced.

In the end, I have reverted to my belief that to fall short of one’s potential is to waste resources. That is not to in any way diminish those things we have accomplished, but to acknowledge those things we haven’t. We, as a country, have not attained the greatness of our potential because we have wasted our time and energy on the wrong things. It is time for us to wake up and understand that each of us is not only responsible for ourselves but for what happens in our country, for this is our country. It doesn’t belong to only the super-rich, the merely rich or even just the middle class. It doesn’t belong to whites or blacks or browns or reds or yellows alone. Neither does it belong to the young, the middle-aged or the old. The country in which we live belongs to all of us no matter our age, race, gender or relative wealth and if we do not succeed together, we will all fail. In order to succeed, surely, we must be better and do better than we are now. After eight years, it is time to change. It is time have the audacity of hope.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, campaign ‘08, candidates, democratic, politics, presidential campaign

The following is the first in a series concerning bias against LGBT in all facets of life, including crime and employment, called Fighting Hate. We will look at what’s going on, who is doing what to whom and how. If we don’t know what’s happening, we can do nothing about it.

Passage of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R. 1592) by the U.S. House of Representatives in a 237-180 bipartisan vote on May 3 signaled the success of a 230-plus member coalition led by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) that includes gay and civil rights organizations, labor, law enforcement professionals, religious groups and professional governmental entities in fighting hate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. The coalition includes: the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, America’s premier civil rights coalition; the American Civil Liberties Union; various unions under the AFL-CIO umbrella; all of the mainstream Protestant denominations and several major Roman Catholic social justice organizations; several major Jewish organizations including Hadassah, the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee and the National Council of Jewish Women; law enforcement organizations like the National Sheriffs’ Association, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and National District Attorneys Association, and; several associations of governmental entities such as United States Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities.

The bill expands existing federal hate crimes laws to include offenses motivated by actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or disability; provides “technical, forensic, prosecutorial, or any other form of assistance in the criminal investigation or prosecution” of bias-motivated crimes under state, local and tribal laws, and; allows jurisdictions to apply for federal grants to help local, state and tribal entities prevent hate crimes committed by juveniles. A little-recognized provision would extend the federal government’s ability to intervene even if the offense was not committed on federal property or the victim was not engaged in one of six federally protected activities at the time the offense occurred as current laws require. The protected activities are: voting; participating in a federal program; working, or applying to work, for the federal government; serving on a jury; participating in a federally-funded program, and; engaging in interstate commerce. The measure is expected to reach the floor of the Senate, where it is called the Matthew Shepard Act (S. 1105), very soon. President George Bush has vowed to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

What many people do not realize is that the H.R. 1592 coalition includes several black civil rights organizations whose constituency is already included in existing hate crimes laws. However, because they believe it is the right thing to do, they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with HRC and other gay rights advocacy groups to support the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes. In doing so, they have become targets of the Religious Right in general and black Religious Right proponents in particular.

In a statement released upon his introduction of the bill, Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee and founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) said, “This legislation is a constructive and measured response to a problem that continues to plague our nation. Behind each of the hate crime statistics is an individual or community targeted for violence for no other reason than race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. These are crimes that shock and shame our national conscience and should be subject to comprehensive federal law enforcement assistance and prosecution.”

According to Hate Crimes Statistics, 2005, an annual report released last October, “7,163 criminal incidents involving 8,380 offenses were reported in 2005 as a result of bias toward a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability.” Of those incidents, 54.7% were motivated by race, 17.1% by religion, 14.2% by sexual orientation, 13.2% by ethnicity/national origin and .7% by disability. It is generally believed that bias crimes based on sexual orientation are widely underreported. Indeed, many jurisdictions do not keep records of such offenses at all and there are no FBI statistics on gender identity-based hate crimes. The Justice Department is required by the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990 to collect data on bias-motivated offenses from legal jurisdictions throughout the country.

Religious Rights organizations vehemently opposed H.R. 1592 after it was introduced by, claiming that it was an attack on Christian values.

In an editorial titled “Conyers’ ‘Hate Grandma’ bill introduced in House” on the Religious Right “news” site WorldNetDaily.com, Janet Folger, president of the Christian activist group Faith2Action, wrote that the congressman “must hate free speech. He must hate equality. And he must hate…grandma. And I think it’s a crime.” She goes on to say that H.R. 1592 would increase the penalties for any crime committed against LGBT and that it would be safer to rob a heterosexual senior citizen. “So, if you’re going to mug someone, better make sure it’s grandma (unless she’s become a lesbian) – because if the guy whose money you steal happens to be a homosexual, you’re looking at a triple sentence. Go after grandma, and it’s one-third off! Hey, why don’t we save everyone a lot of time and just hand out “Conyers’ Coupons for Criminals!”

The so-called “Conyers’ Coupons for Criminals” is a concept almost too convoluted to take seriously, but theoretically indicates the lower level of culpability imposed by committing a crime against a non-protected class; in this instance, a non-LGBT person as opposed to someone who would be protected under an extension of current hate crimes laws.

“The legislation is ostensibly designed to aid local law enforcement officials, but the real objective is to make homosexual behaviors, cross-dressing, and transsexualism into federally protected minority groups. Changeable behaviors are thus to be accorded the same federal protection as race,” wrote the Rev. Louis P. Shelton, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, on that group’s web site. He went on to say, “If signed into law, H.R. 1592 will usher in the death of religious freedom and speech in this nation. Any critical comments about homosexual sodomy will be considered ‘hate speech’ and outside the bounds of First Amendment protections. It has already happened in Canada and it will happen here if H.R. 1592 and other laws like it are not soundly defeated.” The page includes the graphic on the right of a WANTED poster with a supposed picture of Jesus and the heading “For Violation of the Proposed Hate Crimes Law In His Teachings And In His Book ‘The Bible.’”

Interviewed by TWW just hours before the House vote, HRC Regional Field Direction Colin O’Dea said, “I think [the vote will] be a little closer than people thought. I think the Religious Right did a lot more work than we thought they were going to do and caught us a little bit off-guard–not just HRC, but the progressive community as a whole.”

According to the blog Pam’s House Blend, a good read for a summary of the Religious Right’s anti-hate crime bill activities before and after it passed the House (also see these articles), members of Congress were blanketed with e-mail, faxes, letters and phone calls urging them to vote against the measure. Although efforts to amend hate crimes laws to include LGBT people have been introduced since the 1970s, opposition was particularly strong this time, including a failed petition stating that hate crimes legislation would: “Silence the Bible-believing Churches, Pastors and Christians”; “Elevate homosexuality and gender confused individuals such as drag queens, cross-dressers, she-males, etc. to the status of federally-protected minorities. These behaviors will be considered equal to race under the federal law,” and; “Fund anti-Christian curriculum for children K-12, through the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to promote homosexuality and cross-dressing as normal behaviors,” among other false and inflammatory accusations.

Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr., senior pastor of the Washington, DC-area Hope Christian Church and leader of the ultra conservative black Christian political group High Impact Leadership Coalition, held a news conference about a week before passage of H.R. 1592. Flanked by several other black ministers, he said that their joining with conservative white Christians “represents a landmark transition that’s going on in our nation. In fact, what is going on is that there is an amalgamation–a coming together of the black church . . . and the white church against this kind of legislation.” (See this transcript of his statements.) Jackson, at No. 22, was voted one of the 50 Most Influential Christians in America by Church Report Magazine last January. Bishop T.D. Jakes (No. 4), The Potter’s House in Houston, TX; Bishop Eddie L. Long (No. 34), New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Lithonia, GA, and; Dr. Creflo A. Dollar (No. 48), World Changers International are the other black ministers/pastors on the list–all falling squarely in the Religious Right camp.

O’Dea, the HRC regional field director noted that events like Jackson’s press conference are big news because they are so rare. “In communities of color, there are more supporters than most people would think. It makes bigger news when the minister of a mega-church comes out in favor of standing with Bush or standing with the Republicans because [it happens infrequently].”

He is quite right. Much to Jackson’s consternation, by and large, black leaders have been strong supporters of efforts to include LGBT in hate crimes and other pieces of civil rights legislation. “[H.R. 1592] has been endorsed by the NAACP, by other black leadership in high-ranking, kind of official, capacity. But, unfortunately, many of the forerunners of the Civil Rights Movement in the early days are now out-of-touch with what is going on. They are not moving in step with the real grassroots of the black community. So we have a limited number of autonomous, self-appointed leaders who are standing to speak inappropriately for the black community,” he remarked.

Although Jackson did not name specific black leaders, it is a sure bet he included members of the CBC, long-time advocates of civil rights for LGBT people, including support for employment protection, opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act and inclusive hate crime legislation.

An analysis of the May 3 House vote reveals that only 11 members did not co-sponsor the bill (including one deceased and one Senate member), and; only four members did not vote for the bill (one deceased, one Senate member and two absent members). In short, H.R. 1592 received the overwhelming support of CBC members. (Voting results taken from GovTrack.us.)

In a press release issued upon passage of H.R. 1592, CBC Chairwoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-MI) said, “One of our most important charges is to protect and defend [America's] citizens, which is precisely what H.R. 1592, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, introduced by one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr. [does]. . . . As we celebrate two centuries of the end of the African Slave Trade, it is our hope that today will be the beginning of the end of the decades of mindless hatred, bigotry, and discrimination against all God’s children. All Americans have an investment in a stable, violence free government, and that is exactly what this bill provides.”

Jackson may not have enumerated specific black leaders for condemnation, however, he did single out the venerable National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for their support of the bill. Former U.N. ambassador and current NAACP Chairman of the Board Julian Bond has been a steadfast supporter of gay rights. As an advisor and colleague of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he has a unique and unquestionably authoritative view of discrimination in America. When asked in a September 2006 interview conducted by America Online’s Black Voices why a lot of black people think that black rights are reduced when others gain their own, Bond responded, “I don’t know. I think it’s because they don’t have an understanding of the universality of rights. They somehow think, wrongly, that if Joe gets rights, then John loses rights. Which of course, doesn’t make sense. This is a win-win game for everybody.”

In his keynote address at the 2005 Equality Virginia annual dinner, Bond said, “Gay and lesbian rights are not ’special rights’ in any way. It isn’t ’special’ to be free from discrimination–it is an ordinary, universal entitlement of citizenship. The right not to be discriminated against is a common-place claim we all expect to enjoy under our laws and our founding document, the Constitution. That many had to struggle to gain these rights makes them precious–it does not make them special, and it does not reserve them only for me or restrict them from others.”

The NAACP, the CBC, Conyers and Julian Bond were not the only prominent black organizations and individuals endorsing H.R. 1592. Joining them are the A. Philip Randolph Institute; the African Methodist Episcopal Church; the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; the Congress of National Black Churches; the National Black Police Association; the National Urban League, and; the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Union, among others. Read the entire list of supporters.

Technorati Tags: activism, african-american, blacks, christianity, discrimination, gay, harry jackson, hate crimes, homosexuality, hrc, john conyers, legislation, lesbian, lgbt, politics, religious right

I previewed a six-segment series of articles about what it means to be a beautiful black woman in my April 26, 2007 post The Beauty of Imus: Talking About Sex & Race. All of us are bombarded with standards of beauty that could make any woman of color feel as though she is almost irreparably defective, dreamed up by advertising agencies in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Buenos Aires, Johannesburg and Tokyo. Although many of these cities are not in Europe, it is a European standard they purvey. The women are tall, skinny to the point of anorexia, lighter-skinned and often blonde, even in those countries where blonde is anything but a natural hair color. What message does this send to those of us who don’t fit the European mode? Certainly, it is nothing healthy.

Anorexia is a growing problem among black American women. According to the article Dying to be Thin: Minority Women: The Untold Story on NOVA Online, “Much research is now focused on identifying factors that affect the onset of eating disorders among African-American women. It seems that eating disorders may relate to the degree to which African-American women have assimilated into the dominant American social milieu — that is, how much they have adopted the values and behaviors of the prevailing culture.” NOVA Online is the Internet outlet for the outstanding NOVA series aired on public broadcasting stations around the U.S. If authors Marian Fitzgibbon and Melinda Stolley are correct, it is reasonable to assume that this adaptation of prevailing culture is hurting our girls and young women in other ways as well.

Every black woman born after 1900 knows that the one physical characteristic that causes us the greatest stress is our hair. A black woman will spend eight hours or more in a beauty parlor at least one Saturday of every month so that she can feel as though she looks fabulous. For many of us, a weekly visit to our favorite stylist is a must. Our grandmothers did it, our mothers did it, we do it and we’ve bullied our daughters into doing the same thing. Our goal is to emerge from that place of pain, sweat and tears with bone-straight, appropriately curled or waved hair by any means necessary.

An article in the September 2006 issue of Black Enterprise Magazine states that one black-owned Fantastic Sam’s franchise in Matteson, Illinois expected revenues of $450,000 by the end of that year. Johnny Williams, the franchisee, said, “The typical African American female gets her hair done weekly . . . Weekly clients generate a lot of revenue for a hair salon.” It would seem so. Black Enterprise estimates total industry sales at $55 billion and that figure is expected to grow, “driven by both the youth market, with its disposable income, and image-conscious baby boomers wanting to keep their look current,” Williams adds.

This habit is further fueled by magazines like Sophisticate’s Black Hair Styles and Care Guide, Hype Hair, Black Beauty & Hair, the British magazine BlackHair and the Dutch-language publication Black Expressions.

The Internet has entered the game on a very strong footing as well. In addition to online sites for print media, there are also sites with no tactile complement. These include Jazma.com, Internet presence of one of the world’s best black salons, Jazma Hair, Inc. in Toronto, Canada; a very robust section on black hair care at iVillage.com; famed Florida stylist Dwayne Pressley; the black hair care catch-all-and-everything site, BlackHairMedia.com, and; two sections on About.com about black hair care–one for whites who adopt black and mixed-race children and another for black women.

Both black hair care magazines and web sites promote an image of black women who have long, straight hair, even if that means gluing synthetic or human hair strands to their own, shorter, hair. A case in point is the May 2007 23rd Anniversary issue of Sophisticate’s Black Hair Styles where the editors have chosen “The 10 Best Styled Women of 2007.” The winner is singer Mary J. Blige who sports long, light brown hair with blonde tinting. Fellow singers Beyoncé and Kellis, one of only two in the list with short hair, round out the top three. Also making the list are the usual suspects: actress Gabrielle Union; media mogul Oprah Winfrey; talk show host/former supermodel Tyra Banks, and; Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry. Singer/actress/American Idol winner Fantasia is the only other woman with short hair. With the exception of Oprah, none of the women could be considered what we in American black culture like to call “thick” or “heavy.” Where is Oscar-winner/American Idol loser Jennifer Hudson’s “Effy” to Beyoncé’s “Deena,” their respective characters from the 2006 Oscar-winning movie Dreamgirls? If ever there was a real woman’s “It” girl, Hudson is the one!

There is a very small glimmer of hope for those of us who choose to wear short and/or natural hair. Almost all black hair care magazines and web sites have a small section for us. They are usually pretty thin on content, but at least they are there. The exception is the web site Nappturality.com geared specifically toward women who wear their hair naturally and love it–or are learning to. According to the home page, “Here you will find photos of all natural styles, comb coils, two-strand twists, afro puffs, afros, dredlocks (dreadlocks), locs and many other natural styles. Styled by napptural-haired women on their own hair. . . Nappturality is all about embracing your NAPPtural, natural hair. Many, many thousands of African American women and women of African descent all over the world have stopped relaxing their hair and are wearing their natural hair proudly. All have different reasons for doing it — damage, scalp problems, illness, hair loss, finances, curiosity or maybe simply being tired of wasting all day Saturday waiting in a salon. Others saw someone on the train wearing a fierce set of locs, coils or twists and started to rethink their choices.” Members write of their journeys to natural hair, there are hair maintenance tips, product suggestions and, yes, lots of photos, particularly in the forums. Most of all, this is a site where women can get affirmation for their decision to go natural. In a world choking with long-haired, straight-haired blondes of African-descent, Nappturality.com is a breath of very fresh air.

A site of interest for those of us curious about the meanings and origins of our fascination with all things hair can be found at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. The American Mosaic Project–a field study research program in American multicultural studies–hosts “a collection of verbal and visual representations of African American women’s styles” under the banner Sunday Morning Celebration. The representations include articles about church; hats and fashion; music, and, of particular interest; hair.

“African American women’s search for societal acceptance often encompasses struggle between natural and socially constructed ideas of beauty. As an essential component in traditional African societies, cosmetic modification is ritualized to emphasize natural features of blackness. Defined by social occasion such as childhood development to maturity, indicators of marital status or the group to which you belong, beautification of the hair and body play an essential role. In our racially conscious society, presenting a physical image and being accepted is a complex negotiation between two different worlds,” begins the section about black hair.

It seems evident that black women are searching–longing–for acceptance, but from whom? The majority European-descendant population in the U.S. and Europe have a distinct need to see themselves even if that “self” has a black face. DiversityInc.com suggests that it may be very necessary for future and current employees to adopt straight hair in order to get and keep a job in some instances in the succinctly-titled article “Your Hair or Your Job?.”

“Many black people have grown more comfortable with embracing hairstyles that emphasize the characteristics of their hair, and corporate America increasingly is more accepting of braids and short afros. But traditionally conservative industries such as banking and law still may turn you down if you don’t look like what they perceive as executive material. Wearing braids or dreadlocks could be the deciding factor in whether you get the job—and, if you do get hired, getting promoted,” says the article. That is racism.

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission published a new Compliance Manual in April 2006 based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Under the new rules, Section 15 defines racial discrimination to encompass: ancestry; physical characteristics; race-linked illness; culture (emphasis added); perception; association; subgroup or “race plus” (see the link for a definition), and; reverse.

Furthermore, the Manual states that appearance and grooming standards “generally must be neutral, adopted for nondiscriminatory reasons, consistently applied to persons of all racial and ethnic groups, and, if the standard has a disparate impact, it must be job-related and consistent with business necessity.” In elucidating this requirement, the Manual specifically mentions hair.

“Employers can impose neutral hairstyle rules – e.g., that hair be neat, clean, and well-groomed–as long as the rules respect racial differences in hair textures and are applied evenhandedly. For example, Title VII prohibits employers from preventing African American women from wearing their hair in a natural, unpermed “afro” style that complies with the neutral hairstyle rule. Title VII also prohibits employers from applying neutral hairstyle rules more restrictively to hairstyles worn by African Americans.” (EEOC Compliance Manual, April 19, 2006. Viewed 05/14/2007.)

An article about the new rules on a web site belonging to defendants’ law firm Ford & Harrison, LLC analyzes the rules and reminds its clients, “[W]hile employers may establish policies regulating hairstyles, such policies must be equitably enforced and should acknowledge differences in hair textures.” In other words, companies cannot refuse to hire black folks because they don’t like hair worn naturally and expect no repercussions.

The reasons for choosing to wear one’s hair in a particular style are complex. Many of us have been brainwashed to believe that anything that resembles whites must be the way toward all good things in life. Others enjoy their masochistic journeys into beauty salon hell every week and don’t mind the burning, dry, itchy scalp and damaged hair they will inevitably suffer as a result of chemical straighteners. Where else can we get someone to pamper us for hours on end, even if we do have to sit and wait and wait and wait until our favorite operator finishes gabbing with her quadruple-booked other favorite client to get to us? I have abandonment issues, balance problems and a short fuse. For me, the entire lonely and unsure obstacle course of hair dryers, hydraulic lift chairs, sinks, curling irons, hair rollers and the like would be like watching paint dry on a beige wall. Therefore, like Aulelia, our guest columnist, I wear my hair in a natural, although very short, style that is more indicative of who I am.

To those who choose to have their hair straightened so that they hatch from their salon incubators looking like somewhat more curvy white women, have at it. Add to the revenues of a black business owner! But, for goodness sakes, think about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and what you’d like your style to convey about you. Everyone’s style is, ultimately, unique and you don’t have to justify your actions or apologize to anyone. Nevertheless, before you commit to a signature look, maybe it’s best to decide for yourself if black beauty is kinky or straight.

Technorati Tags: african-american, celebrities, discrimination, hair