Unreliably Yours

Sorry, I know this is not a political piece, but I have to plug my group! (and even if you don’t celebrate the holidays, still support us!) Check our our new, hip shirts on our online store with the link below:

http://www.zazzle.com/lacbc1

I am a part of LACBC, and pass this on to friends-we are in serious crunchtime and are trying to start lots of cool bike programs that serve low-income riders of color, as well as take over the streets for a day (Ciclovia)!!! Check out LACBC’s website: www.la-bike.org for more info or feel free to comment.

Our people have infiltrated the White House-it’s official now.

Wait, you say, isn’t Obama the “Black candidate”?

Exsqueeze me? Fuck no, he’s not. He’s me. Mixed race-messy, ooey gooey, confused, disgruntled, treading multiple waters like a grinning jet skier glancing to the side, fucker, just like me.

Yeaaah-hah-hah-hah!! The President’s Office just got diversified, not cuz of say, Jesse Jackson, or Antonio Villaraigosa, but because it takes a mild-mannered, fed up with the bullshit, too mixed to be nationalistic guy like Obama to do the job!!

Let’s delve, shall we, into Obama’s past, with the Ghost of Racial Past? Woo-ooh!! Scary!

Exhibit A: Obama’s Childhood.

His connection (or opportunity to access) to African/Black culture was all but gone-his dad done ran off. We all know this. BUT- did y’all know he grew up around shitloads of Asians??? Hmmm?! Probably not. From

Asian Nerds WILL Have an Impact on Your Social Development. We Got That Kind of Power.

Hawaii to Indonesia, homie grew up with more Asians around him than I did. No wonder he was so busy studying!

Exhibit B: Ruffian College Years of Rebellion

These are the formulative years of identity creation. This is when I started to get into ethnic politics (growing up as an ignorant, mistaken Mestizo who blended in with all the ethnics around me all these years never gave me any reason to pause to think) just like “Barry” did. Of course, that’s when Barry tried to RAISE THE BLACK FIST! at Occidental, only to get shot down by other Black radicals. Why? For not being Black enough.

Says Obama: “My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn’t, couldn’t, end there.”

Obama-Not Black Enough for You-But Got Mad Muslim Points... WTF?!

Thank god he smelled the coffee (for his own sake), kicked the bucket (he used to drink), and got with being mixed! Ain’t nowhere else to go but up at this point!!!!

Exhibit C: A Black Man Running (And Not From the Police). (Slogan credited to Joseph’s shirt-thx!)

While running for Senate in Illinois, he dared compete against two other Black politicians, one of which had way more respect, as an ex-Panther, from the Ghetto, and was dissed as “the white man in Blackface in our community.” (Donne Trotter, one of his opponents, said this-great link/discussion on http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.african.american/browse_thread/thread/d407fe4a9cf36f06?pli=1)

Whoa. Crazy!!!!

Exhibit D: The “Black Candidate.

Oh My God! Even Tiger Sheds a Tear That The "Black Candidate" Got Elected!!!

Well, now we got old Blacks bursting into tears cause “the Dream” finally happened. Certainly, the status of Obama makes this last Election supa-special and momentous. But it is a modified, different Dream than those dear senior citizens could even imagine.

Mixed race people being accepted in mainstream culture, without needing to say they are one thing or the other. Whoa!! (Imagine my surprise in Wayne and Garth’s White ass voices!)

From accusations of inauthenticity, to claims of transcendence-

Obama surely gave people a run for their money! Props to homie for marrying a Black wife-Good foresight, dawg!! Fo sho, she gave him the street cred he needed to win the old school Blacks over with.

Moral of the story: Obama is the shit ’cause he raised our profile and slipped under the radar simultaneously. Slick!! A mixed race foo has risen like a mosher upon hands, raising hope for us all, even if others interpret him within narrow boxes-he doesn’t. And I am smiling.