A Global President

We live in an increasingly globalist society, yet the American populace seems to want a president who is wholly provincial. We want the president to ‘be ours’ and no one else’s. You cannot be (or maintain as) a super power if you can’t see past your own country. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that McCain will be well-received internationally. How seriously can you take an aging cowboy who is in a near lock-step with the previous administration—an administration that has fostered so much ill-will internationally?

Clinton, as smart as she is, isn’t the trailblazer everyone wants or thinks her to be. In this country’s history, she is the only viable female presidential candidate—and she deserves to be recognized as such. However, in the international community, she’s not so special nor is she the first heavyweight female political figure on the global stage: Margaret Thatcher, Tansu Çiller, Angela Merkel, Benazir Bhutto, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Kim Campbell, and others share that distinction. And it sickens me to have to think of this election in terms of gender and race—because it only goes to show how backwards Americans are. People should be able to run for the highest office based on merit. More meritocracy is evidenced on American Idol than in our own political system. And it is the role of merit that makes Obama’s presidential run so frustrating.

As far as the international piece goes, he is more prepared than both Clinton and McCain (even though he saw combat in a different country) combined.
Barack is biracial and from his earliest days had to view the world through a transcultural lens. He grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, and lived and worked in Chicago; three cultural melting pots. You’re not getting much international flavor in Arkansas or Arizona. His being an attorney calls in to question his moral and ethical fortitude, but just based on his upbringing, he has been better prepared for engagement with the international community than either Clinton or McCain.

Folks want to argue that Clinton’s eight years in the White House has given her the training she needs to tackle international problems. A quick aside: I keep harping on the need for a president to be ready for international matters because I truly feel that local governments should be able to handle all domestic problems.
Just because Clinton is married to one of the greatest (yet ethically malleable) political minds of our time does not mean that she is ready. Being the President of the United States is not a meme you can catch. It takes hard work and you don’t learn it through osmosis. But her exposure to the presidential process, foreign ministers, international travel does give her a leg up on Obama, in theory.

What it will boil down to is who utilizes their skill-set in the best possible way. Can Clinton take those eight years and parlay them into an effective presidency? A presidency that will completely and totally eclipse her husband’s storied run? Or can Obama operate from his profoundly transcultural context and embrace the entire world with more than just fancy rhetoric and youth galvanization? And McCain…we don’t need Bush-lite. McCain is the Billy beer of this presidential race—amusing, yet awkward and really spooky under close scrutiny.

I haven’t made up my mind who I will be voting for this November (well…it won’t be McCain) but I will be taking a close look as to who can effectively engage the world in such a way that American will regain some of its international luster—a luster that has been thoroughly corroded under the Bush regime.

Where Does Africa Fit In?

What, if anything, does Africa owe pan-Diaspora Black peoples?
What, if anything, do pan-Diaspora Black peoples owe Africa?
I've been thinking about this lately and I'll offer some ideas in the coming weeks.

Wright and the RC

So…the race card (RC). It makes me laugh—only to distract myself from the anger—when people make the claim that someone is using the RC. The reason that this is coming up is because of what should have been a non-incident: Statements made by the oh-so-divisive Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Rev. Wright said some things that would cause the average (ignorantly-pseudo patriotic) person to blanch. While his words may be too incendiary for some—let’s take a brief look at the track record of our country and see how far off he is. I won’t put the key points in a narrative, I’ll make a list—it is your job to check it twice:

- Decimation of this land’s Native population through war, disease, and treaty violations.
- The trans-Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery
- Jim Crow
- Being the only country in the world to ever drop an Atom bomb (hell, the US dropped two) on an inhabited area
- Getting into WWII so late that European Jews were killed in earth-shattering numbers. Earlier involvement could have saved more people
- Having prior knowledge of Pearl Harbor
- The Tuskegee Experiment
- Viet Nam
- The Iraq War

This is just a mild sampling. As you can see, this country has done/contributed to/engineered through inaction some pretty heinous events. But back to the Rev. Do I agree with everything he spouts? Nope. But I do agree with and appreciate his anger, even if it is a bit self-aggrandizing. But the sad thing is that, as a whole, the US population is so intellectually and socially amateurish that they not only want to lash out at Wright, but also want to stick Obama within the rhetorical sphere. While I like Obama, he is not that hard nor is he that brave. In his current position, he can’t be. This country is (and will be for a very long time) colorstruck (with those of darker skin bearing the brunt of this nation’s color issues).

An institution like Bob Jones University can exist (with the President even going there to visit) and there is little to no uproar. Pat Robertson can say things that are truly divisive, but he has been a confidant to many government leaders. But a retired Black Reverend, who has a connection with the only viable Black Presidential hopeful in this nation’s history, is assaulted by a full multimedia attack. One of the most prominent attacks is saying that Wright is playing the RC. While I do believe that many
Black folks scream racism too much (especially if they get caught doing something stupid) racism exists and to call it out is not playing the RC. It’s self-defense.

What’s funny is that the people who are accusing Wright (and other outspoken Blacks) of using the RC…They are doing the exact same thing, but in their (limited capacity) minds, it is okay for them to do so. When bitter, gun wielding, clinging to religion, American-folks scream that someone is playing/using/dropping the race card, they are playing their own as a foundation for their criticism. What it boils down to is this—it is okay to play the race card, only if that card is carte blanche.

This is dedicated any and everyone who has the fire to point to the demon and name it.