That One…

When historians look back on the defining moments of this election… when the question is asked about how a black man in America was elected president… when the topic arises of the ascendency of Obama to the highest office in the land, one moment will stand out amongst others.

The moment John McCain referred to Barack Obama as “That One.”

You see, dog whistle racism only works when you use coded language in a forum amongst those trained to hear it.  Using terms like “radical” or “unpatriotic” or even “doesn’t see America like us” are all codes for “black” that we’ve all been conditioned to accept.  But, when John McCain gets on a stage in front of millions of Americans and has the temerity and the unbelievable nerve to call the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, a fellow United States senator, and a grown ass man “that one” we have reached a level of disrespect that cannot be ignored and is now at the level benign racism akin to asking the American people whether or not a black man even deserves to share the same stage with him.

This is unacceptable.

If you lose the ability to properly address your opponent with the correct pronoun in regards to his existence and his merits, then you have indeed lost your bearings and are most likely to lose your support.  If I were out in public and pointed at and referred to other than my name, “this gentleman,” “the man right there,” or even “him,” I would take serious issue with the level of respect I’ve been granted.  To pull such a stunt of objectification and dehumanization of your fellow presidential candidate is strange, perverse, sick, and sad.

The question now isn’t who is Barack Obama… the question is, where is the real John McCain?

As a grown man, as a grown black man, as the scion of a struggle to earn equal rights, freedoms, and protection under the law I find this to be offensive to a level that has clearly passed the threshold of racism.

I dare any of you reading this post to refer to your friends, coworkers, associates, or even strangers as “that one” without some type of repurcussion or retribution in response to your disrespect.

You call a man by his name.

John McCain, you have lost.

You have lost this election.

You have lost your honor.

And I think you have lost your mind.

I’m finished with this shit, man.

And here’s his website: http://www.thatone08.com/

Is John McCain’s Age An Issue Of National Security?

Let me start this off by saying that I don’t like to bash old people.  Really I don’t.  My grandparents were old people.  I don’t disregard or diminish the contributions of old people to society nor do I feel that its cool to make old people punchlines or the butt of any joke.  In fact, I hope to one day be an old person, so they get two thumbs up from me.  They do… please keep that in mind as you read the rest of my thoughts here.

I’m concerned about John McCain’s age.  Not just as a practical matter of his physical health and well being, but moreso as a matter of national security and, as witnessed over the past few weeks, how this relates to the potential health and well being of the nation.  You see, as the gaffe train keeps rolling and each day brings us news of another poorly worded or semi-confused statement coming from the candidate’s mouth, I start to wonder if he’s up for the rigors that come with the 24/7/365 grind that is being the leader of the free world.  While most of his contemporaries are well into their retirement and some are dying, John McCain is asking us to give him one of the most mentally and physically rigorous jobs on the planet, and if he can’t remember the SEC vs. the FEC, the prime minister of Spain, or how many homes he has, I don’t know if its fair to saddle him with the presidency.

To be fair, I’m not attacking John McCain here.  I’m genuinely concerned about his health and wish someone would actually speak to this subject in the proper context.  What does this mean to the rest of the nation if he is elected?

If its fair to make insinuations and launch attacks of subtlelty based on Barack Obama’s race, is it equally as appropriate to examine John McCain’s age?  The average Caucasian male in America lives 75.15 years, and as a four time cancer survivor, this number drops a bit more, that said, we’re not talking about a man in tip top physical shape nor are we talking about someone who is abnormally spry for his age as exampled by his inability to to hide his confusion in his bluster.  This could be not only unfortunate for him as our potential leader, but also dangerous.

Are we to believe that its okay that the man we would elect as the “decider” would be forced, by his own diminishing wits, to make decisons by committee or cede vital functions of his executive capacity to proxies so as to allow him time to focus on the issues he’s proficient on, or even still, those he can remember.  These gaffes matter.  Not just because they show a lack of eloqution and articulation of policy, but moreso because they are telling in his inability to stick to his script and his drifitng away from the facts as they are.  When we do not call out this issue, we sugarcoat what could be the most precient and imperative facts of this campaign.

Yes, Barack Obama is black.

Yes, Sarah Palin is a woman.

We know what that means.  We know the historic ramifications of both of their candidacies, but race and gender are not deciding factors in one’s ability to think clearly.  Age is.

John McCain is old.  This is a fact, and yet no one has asked what that really means beyond a whisper here or conjecture there.  No one has gone hard to the paint with this issue as they have with Obama’s membership in a church that espouses black liberation theology and what thay means to race relations or Sarah Palin’s motherhood and what that means to working moms and feminism.  We’ve talked about issues as to who the candidates are genetically, but no one’s talking about what the candidates are chronologically.

The question of McCain’s age is not allayed nor is it relieved when his campaign is not waged on the merits of his ideas and is constantly devolving into a cipher of deception and aggression punctuated by an inability to articulate a message for the future that is coherant and coupled with a plan.  The fact is, unlike Reagan who was able to be magnanimous and forward looking, appearing as the wise sage calling for morning in America, McCain comes across as callous and curmudgeonly.  Instead of asking Americans to dream of ways to reach higher heights, he’s demanding that we get off his lawn before he calls the cops.

Again, unlike race or gender, in this election age matters.  If John McCain can’t convince us that he’s not just in touch with the common man, but in touch with reality, then how can we entrust our country to him?

Why D.W. Griffith Would Approve Of The McCain Campaign

In 1915, D.W. Griffith’s film The Birth Of A Nation premiered as one of the first feature length films that has, over time, garnered critical acclaim and been noted by critics and historians as a piece of great cultural significance. Adapted from the novel, “The Clansman” Its story revolves around America in the waning days of the Civil War and the burgeoning of Reconstruction, painting a glowing picture of the antebellum south while disparaging the ideals of Reconstruction era whites and propagating the opinion that blacks were inferior. It is a movie that glorifies and romanticizes the rise and purpose of the Ku Klux Klan skewing history as such to portray them as a noble organization of righteous men who sought to protect the honor of the south.

Its plot focuses on the savagery of a murderous freed former slave named Gus and his pursuit of a white woman whom he intended to rape and the rise of the noble Klan who come to defend her honor. Upon its showing, whites were known to have hunted down and lynched blacks (this happened after a screening in Lafayette, Indiana), and was fodder for rioting in several cities. Its subtext was clear, blacks will know their place and we (the whites) will show them if they get out of line.

Woodrow Wilson hosted a private screening of the film for his cabinet and assembled guests after which he is quoted as saying, “It is like writing history with lightning.”

Though The Birth Of A Nation was only one film, it encapsulated and articulated the prevailing thoughts of many whites of the day. That the negro population was dangerous and, particularly, black men were not to be trusted by instead controlled. That if black men were to accost white women, in any way, it was the duty of white men to defend their honor and subsequently dispatch of black men through various means of violence and intimidation and this was justifiable grounds for lynching.

Griffith’s message was clear; white men can use any means to protect white women.

This message was sent to the residents of Rosewood, Florida.

This message was sent to Emmit Till.

OJ Simpson didn’t get the memo.

Now let’s fast forward to two weeks ago.

I recalled before sitting in an airport listening to an older white man telling his son how much of a brilliant pick Sarah Palin was for Vice President and how I decided to debate him on the merits and the facts leading him to come up short. I thought I won the argument. But I was wrong.

The Republicans have deployed what can easily referred to as the D.W. Griffith strategy when pitting Sarah Palin against Barack Obama. That is to say that, anytime Obama accosts or makes an affront to Palin, they will drag out the sexism card as a ploy to revert minds back the culture wars of the early part of the twentieth century. It is clear, it is apparent, and it is dangerous.

“How dare he speak of our beautiful white woman that way?”

All the while, distracting the American people from the prevailing issues so that we can focus on lipstick and pigs.

I’ve seen this movie before.

I’m not promoting a separatist agenda or saying that black men and white women can’t or shouldn’t have positive interactions in our society. We do, and that’s what makes this strategy so disturbing. By appealing to what has been a taboo by couching it in another wrong, the McCain campaign has shielded themselves from playing the card on face value, but instead doubling down and letting people draw their own conclusions. They’ve hidden it in coded language and have gone so far with the insult as to say that Sarah Palin is somehow sacred and that all those who would clamor to merely speak to her are really just out to destroy her.

She’s the white princess and Obama, as portrayed in another McCain campaign ad is the black wolf. Now, the political forces of the right have a justification for their cultural lynching of Barack Obama and they can simply cry “sexism” when really they’re speaking to the base level of bigots and pseudo-racists who would believe it to be true.

Nah, I ain’t playin’ that shit.

In order for us to move into a post-racial society, we gotta put all our cards on the table and we have to be honest with one another. We cannot a legitimate claim of sexism to be bastardized by an illegitimate front for racism. We do women a disservice and we cause African Americans an injustice. Playing into taboos and wallowing in old-think isn’t the change that we need. It’s a reversion to the days when black men and white women existed behind a barrier of oppression that pit them against each other to perpetuate it power.

Don’t be fooled.

We don’t live in a world where this kind of thing makes the front page of the paper, and most pundits and talking heads are either too blind, too stupid, or too scared to call it what it is. If you see Rick Davis (John McCain’s campaign manager) or Karl Rove on the street or have their email addresses, pass this along to them and tell them that we’re not playing that game anymore.

I just hope someone else out there is paying attention.

What John McCain Can Learn From Omar Little

As seen on npr.org: http://www.npr.org/blogs/newsandviews/

If you’re like me and were an avid fan of HBO’s series The Wire, you’re no doubt familiar with the character of Omar Little. For those unfamiliar with the show, Omar was creator David Simon’s anti-hero in a sprawling pastiche of flawed individuals. He was a trench coat clad and shotgun toting homosexual man who made his living robbing Baltimore’s drug dealers and, occasionally, dispatching of those who would attempt to do him harm. Hardly the type of character you’d think to invite into your home every Sunday, and even more uncommon a character for people to root for. But, amidst all of his contradictory character flaws, there was something about Omar Little that made him admirable… he had a code. He never cursed, never raised his gun to children or anyone not involved in selling drugs, he didn’t work on Sundays, and even made it a point to take his grandmother to church every week. Beyond the not so nice qualities that made him a thug, there were these few qualities that made him honorable.

I wish John McCain watched The Wire.

Not because it would give him a better since of what’s going on in urban America, or because it would give him a better grasp on law enforcement, school, or other municipal services that are suffering in our inner cities. Not even because it was just a really good show. No, I wish he had watched it to learn the lesson of Omar Little and what life is like for a man with a code.

I saw John McCain’s new campaign ad today where he attacks Barack Obama on his stance on teaching sex education to kindergarteners. The image is, to put it quite bluntly, jarring and to expound, perverse and disturbing. The screen juxtaposes the smiling image of a black man beside the emblazoned terms KINDERGARTEN and SEX as if to send the subliminal subtext that the happy negro on the screen is some type of hypersexual creature waiting to come after your children or children you may know. It is, in some senses, the most base level and disgusting political ad I’ve seen since Lee Atwater introduced the world to Willie Horton in 1988 (and yeah, I was only 10 back then and I knew it was fucked up.).

This is the politics of 51/49 that we have been subjugated to and manipulated by for the past fifteen years. A politics of identity and division where citizens are pitted against citizens to curry the government to address their individual needs. Where we can’t use the hyphen in our Americaness (African-American, Italian-American, Arab-American) to connect us, but rather, to divide us. It’s the same tool the master used against the slave to keep them servile and it is the cudgel that is used now to keep us fighting over the crumbs instead of asking where the cake is at.

But I digress.

When this campaign began, John McCain promised that he would run an honorable campaign based on the issues that the American people could be proud of, a civilized debate of the matters facing our nation, and a departure from the Karl Rove tactics of the past that even he had been a victim of in 2000. I believed him because I believed in the John McCain of 2000… But I was wrong.

John McCain, you have no honor.

Let me break it down til it can no longer be broke…

The Mafia has a code.

Gangbangers have a code.

Dope dealers have a code.

Even prisoners have a code.

Out in the streets and in the annals of the underworld that most people never see, there are rules and laws that dictate ones behavior and they are predicated on the most primary tenet of ones character. The ability to keep ones word. You say what you mean, mean what you say, and that which is said is your credit on your name. That’s all you got. That’s the currency you trade on.

Back to Omar.

Omar lived by his code and stuck to his word which made him a respectable, although not always likeable, individual. The police knew where he stood, the streets knew where he stood, and so when a question arose about what he did or did not do, he always had his word and his code to fall back on. Until he was blinded by anger and avarice and went from being a man of righteous purpose to a man of selfish vengeance. He crossed his own line and shortly thereafter, he was dispatched. Ironically enough, by one of those he would have not turned his gun on based on his own honor.

So when John McCain chooses to disregard his own word, betray his own code, and negate his own honor, he only sets himself up to become a victim of his own tactics.

I’m not espousing violence or fomenting disproportionate retribution here, people (for the Feds that might be reading my thoughts). I’m just drawing a parallel based on our generations closest thing to a Greek tragedy.

The moral of the story is, when you betray the thing you love by betraying your promise to it, that thing will destroy you.

The same can be said for Jimmy McNulty as it can be said for Bill Clinton. It can be said for Stringer Bell as it can be said for Karl Rove. You can’t be yourself by not being yourself and not suffer the consequences of your actions.

I hope someone in the McCain campain has some time to check out The Wire and can let ol’ Johnny know how these stories end.

Probably not.

And probably, like The Wire, this story won’t end the way I want it to and instead we won’t see real change, but just the perpetuation of the same by new faces of the same faction.

I hope I’m wrong, but I’m usually not.

Why I Quit The Republican Party… Or How They Quit Me

They finally did it.

They lost me.

After being intently focused on the Democratic National Convention last week for both its historic implications as well as tangential story lines, I felt that this week’s Republican Convention would serve as a counter balance with an equally, albeit different, and yet compelling narrative about what Republican leadership in America would mean in the next four years.

Admittedly, things started off a bit slow with Hurricane Gustav impeding the first night, however I expected to see what the tone and overall theme of the convention would be on Tuesday evening with some anticipation.

Unfortunately, I was gravely disappointed.

After last week’s showing in Denver which highlighted the Democratic Party’s commitment to diversity not only in thought and opinion, but also in personage and ethnicity, the Republicans failed to show any diversity in any respects.

I’m through with them.

The fact that this historic juncture in America’s history was so overlooked as to not allow the Republicans to fine one brown face, one voice of seeming dissent, or one person who didn’t look like “one of them” to be highlighted or even seen is beyond a disappointment. Its an insult. As I panned the audience I was shocked to see that there was an overrepresentation of old white men and an underrepresentation of of just about everyone else.

How can this be?

How could they even allow this to happen this time?

What were they thinking?

Obviously they weren’t thinking statistically. In a country where minorities are quickly becoming a majority and African American and Hispanic populations continue to swell, the idea of reaching out to roughly 35% of the population must have been a reach for them. Instead, they seem to want to latch on to “culture” and “taxes” voters and hope that they don’t see through this sham that is inculcated and institutionalized exclusion on the part of the country’s political system. Add to that the fact that they would choose to denigrate opposing views of American values as being somehow unpatriotic doesn’t just smack of arrogance, it is increasingly jingoistic and racist.

Yeah, I said it.

The Republicans have decided to run a campaign of exclusion and choose an “Us vs. Them” strategy with the “Us” being the so called white mainstream and the “Them” being the increasing diversity of the population of America.

I can’t stand for that.

I can’t stand with that.

I’m Corey Richardson and I don’t approve that message.

Where’s JC Watts? Where’s Michael Steele? Where are the brown faces they drag out when its time to push an issue that throws black people under the bus? Can you at least try to fool me this time? Or do me and those like me just not matter? Is there such a sense of strife in America that this election is devolving into the fight for the future as they see it vs. who we see it?

I hope not.

But then again, what should I have expected… These people have finally taken off their masks to expose their faces (or white hoods, I can’t be sure) and all I’m waiting for now is for someone to get frustrated and just say, “WE CAN’T LET THIS NIGGER WIN” on camera so I can finally be justified.

Sarah Palin is a self avowed redneck.

Fred Thompson called for a new culture war in America.

Karl Rove wants us to see Barack Obama as an Uppity Negro and wants people to put him in his place.

The whole thing makes me sick.

Now the question is, what side do you stand on?

When they say "throw your hands in the air" at this party, they're probably arresting you