7 posts tagged “president”

just found out 2months later from kenyatta cheese that this is the best recap of the obama inauguration experience as told by Baratunde through his twitter and flickr stream. Baratunde is funny. I like him.

watch this commercial that tries to warn you about the dangers of pot.

The first time I watched this commercial I thought it was going to be a message about staying youthful and not caring what others think - or something like that. Well as I heard the words in quotation marks, this is what I thought in capitalized letters.

"I stole from my little sister." OH COOL I DID THAT FROM MY BROTHER ALLL THE TIME!
I left my girlfriend 27 messages last night." WOW HE'S REALLY INTO HIS GIRLFRIEND TO CALL THAT THAT MANY TIMES - HE MUST BE REALLY SORRY ABOUT CHEATING ON HER
"I let people draw on me." WOW THAT IS GREAT - I WISH I COULD BE THAT LAID BACK TO LET FRIENDS DRAW ALL OVER ME - I NEED TO HAVE A DRAWING PARTY SOON!I  I HAVEN'T LET PEOPLE DRAW ON ME SINCE HIGH SCHOOL!
"I ditched my friends and let them find their own way home." HAHA - I SHOULD TRY THAT ONE DAY!

UMMM I don't think that they wanted me to do that. then I went to the website- above the influence - thinking that this was a commercial about not doing heroine or meth - but it's about FREAKING pot!! arggg America sometimes you suck!  We don't have a ban on fire arms but we ban pot - so now US guns flood Mexico so that the cartels can use them to sell to the US pot and cole. If people REALLLLY want to fight "drugs" - then they need to fight the legalization of fire arms in the US - it starts there, then those people need to go away so that we can legalize pot and tax the plant. Read this article from the La Times to understand this topic - the War we Gave Mexico - The drugs, guns and culture that fuel the violence all are linked to the U.S.  This is the excerpt that explains it all -

"...three of the region's former heads of state -- including onetime Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo -- recently issued a report urging the U.S. to consider legalizing at least marijuana. Fat chance.

Similarly, at a news conference this week, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. set off a firestorm when he mentioned in passing that the U.S. should consider restoring its ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons. That prohibition, adopted in 1994, contained a clause requiring Congress to renew the ban after 10 years. To nobody's surprise, Congress didn't, and now assault weapons, semiautomatic pistols and .50-caliber rifles that are illegal in Mexico flow into the hands of the drug traffickers there from an estimated 6,000 American gun dealers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Thus, America's political decisions to treat drug addiction as a crime rather than a public health problem, and to legalize AK-47s but not pot, fuel an incipient civil war in Mexico."

The media is not helping obama by referring to him as the "First Black President."  Even John Stewart referred to him as America's First Black President and I rely on him for the real news.  The media is also not helping Obama if they ONLY show working-class blacks as identifying with Obama - because guess what - OBAMA ISn't ONLY BLACK and It WASN't JUST BLACKS WHO VOTED OBAMA INTO OFFICE!

What about all the working class white people who voted for Obama?  And what about middle-upper class whites?  And all the Latinos who voted Obama? The Asians - well the asians we are totally absent from the story.  What about all the other minorities who together formed a large bloc of voters?

My point is that the media needs to give a more balanced coverage of voters who support Obama. Obama won because he is a unifier - he didn't JUST appeal to blacks.  ANd in his speech on Nov. 4th - he ackonowledged all the people from diff classes, ethniciteis and races who helped get him into office.

So please, call him bi-racial, post-racial, multi-culti, multi-ethnic, human, mixed - whatever- just stop calling him black - that's not helping him and it's alienating all the whites, latinos, asians and other minorities who worked hard to get him into office.

The media discourse needs to do a better job of reflecting reality and the kind of reality we want to achieve - one that is open to all backgrounds.

addendum: I posted on twitter 2 days ago: "today is one of those days I truly feel my country's joyful soul - we finally have our first CONSCIOUSLY bi-racial pres"   so I said "consciously" because there is such thing as only black or only white - especially in the US with america's history of slavery.

addendum #2 of a comment from facebook:
my friend wrote this comment to my post:

FRIEND:
'm not sure what to think about this. I see your point, but allow me to play devil's advocate: it also seems to me like insisting on identifying him as multi-racial advances a sort of biological-essentialist, where race is determined exclusively by parentage. What seems more important is that he fits the prevailing social conception of blackness, and to some extent embraces it. I doubt his white mother makes racists like him any more. In that sense, I think he's overcome just about all the obstacles he would have faced if she had been black, and to take note of his blackness is to acknowledge the magnitude of his accomplishments in overcoming them.

well and you knowI am the first person to agree with you that "race' is a very freaking problematic category - yes. but I was just giving some alternative "words' for the press to use- it's all problematic no matter what. obama himself insists that he is post-racial. i am simply echoing what obama himself has asked of us = which is to not refer to him as ONLY black, and to keep in mind everyone who voted for him

FRIEND:
Right. I do have a major problem with the fact that seemingly few people, even people within the media, have even stopped to give any thought to this.

ME
yah you're right.
I mean either way -if we talk about 'race itself" or of "social conceptions of blackness"- well its' just that - it's socially constructed - historically constituted - orally created - blah blah - I mean what is the "black experience" - to even single out one black experience ignores the diversity of blacks - like not all blacks are working class and etc .  so even to say "black" does not refer to a singular experience. this is not to say that people can't say he's black - or that someone can't just say "I'm black."  What is going on is that it's all complicated, socially constructed and messy - and when the media is as powerful as it is- it should be more concsious of how it frames a "person" as powerful as obama now - even Obama is conscious of it - he has asked us not to call him black - this is not to say that he doesn't think he's black or that he's not black or denying the a "black experience."

This is simply a matter of trying to figure out what is the best way to unite a country that has had and continues to have a diffcult time with race - so that is why I think he's asked us to consider him as "post-racial."  in no way am I denying the whatever kind of life experience obama has had - or what other blacks have had .  I just want the media to be more critical of how it frames obama and what kind of implications it has when it ONLY focuses on the happiness of black voters who can now identify with the president.  i think the media should also focus on how iraqis can now have hope this war will end, how soldiers can know that they were will be an end to this terrorism we have waged on the middle east, on all the undocumented migrants who can have a chance to become documented, on all the gays who can now have hope that on a federal level there can be more openess to equality - for latinos who have also worked their asses off to become citizens and many who just voted for the first time - also highlight those stories ALONGSIDE the 106  year old black woman who just voted for obama - a diversity of voices is reflective of our diverse country.

Differences, borders, lines, surfaces and boundaries do not really divide things from each other at all, they join them together. All boundaries are held in common.” Alan Watts

Ok I voted.  Adriene and I went at 8am and voted in a person's garage - I guess that's what voting is like in suburbia.  I've been in nyc the last 2 elections - so I actually have never voted in california really.  

I anticipate the moment when I can say tonight that I am going to cry out of happiness that america will have its first consciously mixed-race president.   (why do i say consciously? no need to go over US slave history why some whites may deny being part black and vice-versa.)  The media needs to stop saying "obama, the first black or african-american president."  He's a mixed! he has never referred to himself as only black. 

What's made me sad is that hilary clinton has been so absent in all this election business. where is her support for obama? sore losers are no phone.

oh well - I'm going to be patriotic tonight - I am going to be an american - I am going to the madonna concert in SD!  One of my advisors offered me a ticket so I could not pass up this opportunity.  Madonna is the queen of contradictions - how much more american can that be? 

 

I made this t-shirt because I think the two groups that have some of the highest stakes in this election are migrantes and iraqis.  If obama wins, undocumented migrants will be another stop closer in passing the Dream Act and for Iraqis they will be closer to seeing an end to this war that we started.  

I tried to make a t-sirt that said "Iraqis and Migrants 4 Obama" - but it just didn't look right - too many words and too many thoughts!  So since I research migration, I went with "Migrantes 4 Obama"  on the front and "migrants for obama on the back."   

America is a country made up entirely of migrants. The only real "non-migrants" are the American Indians - but unfortunately they were wiped out by the Euro/Anglo migrants. Unfortunately the US claim denies "migrants" from Mexico on one hand and blindly welcomes them to work the fields on the other hand.  Undocumented migrant  labor allows middle- and upper class Americans to have a comfortable lifestyle and the worst part is that we refuse to see that our economic policies (with the help of the Mexican elite)  has benefited Americans while unstablizing the entire Mexican economy. 

My vote goes to Obama - the person who is closest to defining what America means to me - an inclusive country trying to make sense of its identity rooted in historical hypocrisy. 

Get your t-shirt from zazzle - Grecia and i designed a t-shirt that you can buy in different colors and sizes for males and females.