The following diary is my answer to the over 50 diaries and hundreds of comments that have littered this blog over the last few days and as I see no end in sight – I will speak my bit here, and then retreat.
I will only address this here. It will be posted – scroll rapidly off the board and I will have said my piece.
Catharsis for me perhaps, but that is a diarist’s privilege.
Black people who have an experience growing up in rough neighborhoods, or going to prison, or fighting in the long long series of struggles to gain status as 100% human in our dear home of America are familiar with the saying, "I got your back".
Anyone who has ever fought in the military knows how dangerous it can be to leave your rear unprotected and how deadly such an opening can be.
This is my story. All of y’all have your own stories. Reminds me of an old TV series that used to open up with "there are a thousand stories in the Naked City and this is just one of them..."
Good news for Barack Obama and very bad news for John McCain.
Contrary to polls discussed during the primary season, it looks like McCain's purported strength among Latinos/Hispanics was an illusion.
National Poll Shows That Latino Voters Favor Obama Over McCain
June 16, 2008
Latino voters favor Obama over McCain, according to Latino Decisions Poll.
A new national survey of Latino voters shows Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with a nearly 3-to-1 advantage over his rival, Republican John McCain.
Since the blowup over the incident with the two women who were wrongfully removed from sitting behind Senator Obama because they were wearing hijabs, there have been several diaries here discussing the issue, and I have tried to read all of the comments.
I was distressed by some of the remarks made in the diaries, and I won't call out anyone's names but my distress is based on the fact that I often wear a headwrap as a black woman here in the US for religious, cultural and ancestral reasons.
Some people who commented even asserted that the volunteers who took these steps were correct, since it would "protect" our candidate from the current slew of right-wing smears.
I was perturbed by what I feel is both a xenophobic and ethnocentric perspective on head-covering, and to explain how those of us who do wear them can identify with the feelings of the two women who were discriminated against. More importantly, I want to raise the issue in a broader context, and to discuss how this speaks to larger issues of diversity here in the United States.
Okay, for those of you who are looking for a political diary this isn't it. For those of you who don't give a hoot about fashion or fashion photography suggest you "git on down" the blogroll.
But if there are any Kossaks who pay the slighest bit of attention to Vogue and style - read on.
Today's NYT's Fashion and Style section features an article Conspicuous by Their Presence discussing the new issue of Italian Vogue inspired by Barack Obama.
As I browsed through the list posted today on TPM about staffing additions to team Obama, I grew curious about the last name listed; African American Vote Director: Rick Wade
While other Kossaks are pondering the deep inner meaning of the Solis-Doyle hire, I wanted to take a good look at the person who will more than likely be coordinating GOTV efforts in African-American communities.
David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network reports:
EXCLUSIVE: Obama Campaign will Launch 'Joshua Generation Project'
June 6, 2008
The Brody File has learned that in the next two weeks Barack Obama's campaign will unveil a major new program to attract younger Evangelicals and Catholics to their campaign.
It's called the "Joshua Generation Project." The name is based on the biblical story of how Joshua's generation led the Israelites into the Promised Land.
A source close to the Obama campaign tells The Brody File the following:
"The Joshua Generation project will be the Obama campaign's outreach to young people of faith. There's unprecedented energy and excitement for Obama among young evangelicals and Catholics. The Joshua Generation project will tap into that excitement and provide young people of faith opportunities to stand up for their values and move the campaign forward."
The Democratic National Committee today will release a spooky-music video, "McCain and Lobbyists," finishing with a shot of the senator slapping his forehead with his left hand.
There have been numerous diaries here discussing the McCain proposal for a series of town hall meetings between himself and Barack Obama. Among them were:
As I watched Barack Obama take the podium last night and listened to his speech, I was sat in silence, tears streaming down my cheeks with joy, holding my husband's hand. It's been a long road, and we still have further to go, but this is a moment in our history that I never thought I'd live to see. As a young black child raised on poetry by my father and mother, one of the poets I learned to love and cherish was Langston Hughes.
The words of his classic poem echoed in my mind, and I smiled through my tears, because our dream is deferred no more.
Olympic gold medalist Billy Mills, a Lakota Sioux born and raised on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, today endorsed U.S. Sen. Barack Obama for President. Mills, who won the 1964 Olympic gold in the 10,000-meter run in one of the greatest upsets in Olympic history, said that he was a lifelong Republican, but that he had been inspired by Obama’s track record of uniting Americans from all walks of life. He also noted Obama’s background as the son of a single, working mom and his youth in Hawaii and Indonesia as predictive of his ability to understand and work for people in underserved communities.
I can remember when "Running Brave" as he was called, became the first American to win the 10,000 meter race in an Olympics.
When I was watching the Rule's and Bylaw's meeting yesterday and listening to the commentary, most of the pundits spent time discussing the history of co-chair James Roosevelt, making much of his relationship to FDR (he's a grandson).
Little was said about the background of co-chair Alexis Herman, though a few commentators remarked that she had been a member of the Clinton administration.
As I listened to her honeyed Southern vocal tones, and watched her controlled performance of her duties, the question popped into my head, "Who's that Lady?", a refrain from my favorite tune by the Isley Brothers.
Inspired by Barack Obama's candidacy, the series explores questions of "race" - with links to the American Anthropological Association (AAA) statement on race, and a number of fascinating interviews with multi-racial familes or children of multi-racial parents.
The men and women who knew their Constitutional right to vote meant little when poll taxes and literacy tests, violence, and intimidation made it impossible to exercise their right, so they marched and protested, faced dogs and tear gas, knelt down on that bridge in Selma to pray and were beaten within an inch of their lives.
While yesterday’s statements by Senator Clinton diverted us all from the road ahead Senator Obama forged on, confronting and addressing his toughest audience to date, on the Anniversary of Cuban Independence in Miami Florida, a state where Republicans have been comfortably assured of reaping automatic votes from the anti-Fidelista community that is now over 2 million strong in the US
The majority of the more than 2 million current Cuban exiles living in the United States live in and around the city of Miami. Other exiles have relocated to form substantial Cuban American communities in Union City, New Jersey, Hazleton, Pennsylvania, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Raleigh, North Carolina and Palm Desert, California.
Markos has often stated here that mayors are important. In Puerto Rico, they are VERY important.
The second largest city in Puerto Rico is Ponce, where my husband's family is from.
With a population of 194,636, Ponce is Puerto Rico's second largest city (San Juan is the first and Mayaguez is the third). Ponce is known as "La Perla del Sur" (pearl of the south) and "La Ciudad de los Leones" (city of lions). Ponce was founded in 1692 by Juan Ponce de León's great-grandson - Loíza Ponce de León.
The 2008 Puerto Rico Democratic primary will take place on June 1, 2008. It will be an open primary.[1] Puerto Rico initially planned to hold caucuses, as was done in 2000 and 2004, on June 7, 2008. In December 2007, a typo in the plan was discovered; the caucus date should have read June 1, 2008. Puerto Rico also decided to conduct a primary, rather than caucuses.[2] Puerto Rico has 55 pledged delegates which will be alloted on a proportional basis and 8 unpledged "superdelegates". Puerto Rico will select 1 Unpledged add-on delegate. Selection of the unpledged add-on delegate will occur at the Assembly of the Democratic Party of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico on June 21, 2008 in San Juan.
