What's This I Hear About Obama Being Black?

Gads. Is he really? This could be a problem. Does everyone know? Oh - some think he's Arab. I thought his dad was from Kenya. And now he's a Muslim because his father was a Muslim because his father was a Muslim? Oy. This could really be a problem.

He's so articulate and intelligent - he's a Harvard grad! Is this going to be problematic for other Blacks?

Many of my posts are informed by someting I read, or see on TV. Over the past few weeks I have watched the CNN Series (there's that damn CNN again) Black in America. It really is an excellent look at where Blacks are in the year 2008 - forty-some years after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law. Like people of all colors, Blacks are doing many different things; unfortunately one in three youg Black men will land in jail at some point. Or in the grave. Most Blacks live in poverty - in those awful project-prisons built to store them in during the 1960s and 70s. Middle and upper middle class Blacks are rarely given any "good publicity." The rest of America is more interested in hearing about the hood, gangstas, violence, drugs, rap music and general mayhem. More exciting, you know. Oh yeah, there were the Cosby's, once upon a time.

I have what may be considered by some a strange interest in Black life in America. I sort of inherited it from my dad, who as a young man in L.A., lived at 113th and San Pedro in L.A. and went to Washington High. He and his friends would go to Black clubs in the 1940s to listen to jazz. He told me once he had always secretly wished he was Black. Me too. Why? Has the media glorified the gangsta life so blonde - headed fools like me feel attracted to it? Do I have a genuine desire to lift up people who need help standing on their own two feet in this culture that has systematically broken them down? Do I have White guilt? Do I just really love the music and the art that comes from this generation (and generations before) of Black Americans?

Back in the day, when I wore pink or blue hair and ripped up fishnets and safety-pins, I lived on Exposition, which is certainly within the borders of the 'hood. My USC schoolmates were too scared to visit the liquor store a couple blocks away from out apartment. Not me, though. The only trouble I ever ran into was a crowd come to see the crazy white girl. They laughed and asked me where the hell I was from (this was pretty early in punk rockdom). And though the liquor store where I bought my pink champale was right next to an ambulance service, which was really a drug sales point disguised as an ambulance service, the folks gathered 'round really couldn't have been friendlier. I don't think they would have been as sociable if I were wearing Abercrombie & Fitch and had my nose in the air and my purse clutched close to my breast.

Come to think of it, most punk rock venues were in some kind of hood. That's the only place punk rock bands were allowed to play. So, while the locals never went inside the club, we drank 40s of Olde English 800 out in the parking lot with them. Anyway, I never wanted to be one of those "look at those interesting niggers, dear," types, but I was always genuinely interested.

I saw some of the first rap/hip hop acts in the early 1980s at a place called Radio in downtown L.A. Grandmaster Flash came there, with Mel E Mel, Ice-T, and others I can't remember anymore. When The Message (Grandmaster Flash) came out, everyone I knew bought a copy.

I spent some years in Europe in the 80s, and when I came back, Gangsta Rap was getting ready to take over the genre. It was rough and rude and scary and I loved it - Dr. Dre, Snoop Dog, Eminem, Eazy-E, Tupac, Ice Cube, BoneThugs. Why would I love music that was misogynistic, full of bravado, threatening, even criminal? Well, it had wicked beats, for one. It remended me of punk rock in its utter rebellion. It was local - as in L.A. It was naughty and humorous. Some was great, some was bad, and some was worse. I sure wasn't going to put on my punk rock garb and check out the parties in the LBC, though. Times had changed.

I could write forever about race and class issues, about music and how different colored people are represented in the media. And I will, but for the next three weeks, I'm focusing on the election. How does this tie in? Well, because when I look at Obama, I don't see the same type of Black citizen I am accustomed to seeing in my city, on TV, in music videos. I wonder how young Black men feel about Obama. Is he "too white"? Is he someone to look up to? Is he the first in a new line of politically aware Black men who will begin fighting to get their communities back? Will the entrenched "system" allow them to become more powerful than they are now? Is life just so bleak, most Black boys and men give up before they've ever started? Who is in charge of zoning in every major American city? Why aren't there grocery stores with fresh produce and cheaper prices in most every Black ghetto? Why are there three times as many liquor and gun stores in those same areas?

I wish Obama could speak the truth. The REAL truth. If he did, he'd never be elected, though. I hope after we elect him, he'll do the right thing, as Spike Lee says. Obama, especially with his Kenyan name, is not a stereotypical American Black man, at least in the eyes of the White/Latino/Asian communities. He wears a natty suit and uses big words. Still, he is accused of being associated with something "scary" - he's a Muslim, an Arab, a "druggie" in his high school days, and a co-conspirator with domestic terrorisis today. He can behave as every other senator does, but he can't change the color of his skin. He's stuck with it. Will it be a deal-breaker? I guess it partly depends on whether the Repub PTB are REALLY willing to go there, now that the stakes are so high.