Last night as I was drifting off to sleep I caught this clip on the local news. What do we have here? A Black woman expressing discontent with President Obama. Now having had a chance to make the rounds to some of my favorite bloggers this morning like Field Negro and a few others, there are some that want to down play what this woman had to say. To recap in case you aren’t up for link clicking, this gal expressed her unhappiness that her financial situation has actually worsened since Obama took office. Now anyone who thought that Obama becoming POTUS was going to magically make America a happy and prosperous place for all clearly had been smoking herbals. No one man can be all things to all people. Clearly Obama has faced some challenges that his predecessors never had to face namely the rise of nut jobs aka Palin, Beck, etc. There is also the fact that a certain segment of the American population will never see this man as a legitimate president. Hell, a video could be shown clearly showing Obama being born and well folks will still believe what they want to believe.
However I thought what this woman said was brave and for many millions of American a true statement. Is she literally eating hot dogs and beans? My guess is no but more like the comfortable standard of life she thought would be rightfully hers by a certain age is no longer a sure thing. Instead of financial stability my guess is there is financial instability. In fact just before my local news showed that clip, there was a piece about how food pantry use was up in some of Maine’s most well heeled towns. I am talking places with multi million dollar homes and views of the ocean and the inhabitants of such spaces needing to go to a food pantry for food. Don’t know about you but that shit doesn’t compute, of course thanks to my job I am regularly in touch with members of the formerly middle class who need some help.
For many when Obama was elected back in 2008 we felt the spirit of change, problem is we had no idea what change would look like. While we are now being told the recession officially ended last year, the fact remains that for millions there are no jobs and what jobs exist do not pay a living wage. If the economy is stagnant it’s because people who are financially fearful tend to hang on to their money. Marketers and retailers are starting to realize that frugality is not a passing thing, it’s the new reality yet for an economy driven by consumption it’s a bad thing.
As far as Obama while he has had many barriers the fact remains he and his economic team did not take the economy seriously enough and frankly I think that is going to bite the Democrats in the ass come November. No, our President and leaders are not meant to be our friends yet in America we have a silly habit of wanting the powers to be to relate to us, to make us feel good. If you think I am lying think about the last POTUS, dude wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box but he made folks (well some folks, the ones who vote apparently) feel good. So to reward those good feelings he in return got 8 years to fuck up our nation. Spent all the money on silly wars but damn it he made us feel good.
Obama on the other hand does not make us feel good, shit we look at him and some of us get mad. Some of us support him on the basis of his Blackness (I’m talking about my fellow Black folks) but lately even Blackness is not enough to keep us from grumbling. If you can’t make the people feel good and or deliver some change that results in a few shekels in folk’s pockets so Friday dinners can be had, well you have a problem.
As I see the Tea Party growing in this country despite the clear level of stupidity of most of its members that tells me we as a nation are getting ready for some change. Yet for some reason this change feels a lot less positive than the change we witnessed in November 2008.
When I voted for Obama, I never expected that he, or his administration, would take office & we’d have prosperity overnight. Even he can’t undo in 18 mos what it took the Bush/Cheney administration 8 yrs to do to us.
It bothers me that people, Black & White, have set such a high bar for this POTUS… I feel its media driven by those who feel we should never have had a Black President in the first place because of his ‘origin’ issues.
Is there an economic issue to deal with? Sure. But the underlying issue is that unspoken “see, we told you a Black President couldn’t get this done because no one would take him seriously”. Listen to all the hubub about his vacations. Did people complain about Bush taking vacations? Not so much. There was a recent article about both Presidents showing total vacations in the first 15 mos & though I can’t remember the total number, Bush outpaced Obama… so who is really on the job? Its an inane issue but that’s where we’re at… picking apart every aspect of this mans’ life to discredit him in the eyes of the American people. They even showed him wearing a Chicago White Sox cap… that HAS to be bad publicity!
I hear people say “Well I voted for him, but I won’t do it again”. When I ask why, I get “Well, he hasn’t done what he promised”. OK, gee, what President does, especially in his 1st 18 mos? We have healthcare reform, whether its perfect or not remains to be seen. The big car makers, who Obama pushed to have bailed out, have been turned around, are working again, are paying back the bail out $$ and the gov’t owned stock will be publicly sold. Gee, seems like THAT worked… but I don’t hear anyone giving him kudos for that. Did it cost billions? Yes? Are we getting it back? Yes? Are people back to work & companies saved? Yes. So it was a win/win. Um, so where is all the GOOD press about that?
As you can see, this really ticks me off. I’m tired of ANY POTUS being being disrespected because of the way I was raised. Unless he has done something illegal, back off. Let him do his job. He does NOT do this alone. He is not the total package. We have a Congress that isn’t totally ‘helpful’ if you get my drift. He also has 8, count ’em EIGHT, YEARS of an administration wrought with fumbles & bumbles to undo or fix. This isn’t t.v. or the movies; special effects or scripts don’t work here.
Okay, my rant is over. I’m putting my soapbox away for now. Who knew I could get so pissed off about a political issue? Phew.
They thought that he was Magical Mulatto and he was going to come into office with his kit of jungle magic and sprinkle it all over the place and make everything all better. It took 8 fucking years for the country to get into this hole and it’s going to take probably 10 to get out of it. I wish he would have just said “Really? Are you really eating pork and beans? If so then make sure you buy them at Costo as they are cheaper in bulk.” He needs to act like he never going into office again and handle his business. He needs to find his Chicago swagger along with his I’m smarter than you and keep it moving. Maybe people will like him more if he dumbs himself down and makes up words. America don’t love an uppity nigger.
But seriously I have no idea what black want from this man. I don’t expect to do shit for me. Just fix this country’s problems, put laws in effect that will benefit my children and the future. Any issues that I am having in my life right now are due to piss poor planning.
People seriously don’t get that even the best of change is not an overnight process. If you sow a seed in the ground, you may not see anything grow for weeks. But allow it the chance to grow, and you will realize what change took place.
People thing that reversing many of our problems is an instant fix – apparently, it isn’t. And it doesn’t matter who you think should be in the driver seat because no one has a magic green thumb to make it happen. Rather it is about ideology and having the academic/intellectual know how to prove it true. That is what put Obama ahead of McCain, it was his gumption. I realize people are beyond impatient for “change” to occur, but change won’t occur we just sit back and go to sleep until 2012.
That’s good- I wish the video had included his response! And I love hearing people’s verbal tics- her’s was ‘quite frankly’. 🙂
And I’m so annoyed with people thinking that someone could come into office and wave a magic wand. It’s hard to get reform pressed through when so many people are whining about spending. But I don’t want to offer them too many excuses- I know people are suffering and that it may be a while before many people can hope to find those cushy full-time, benefited jobs again (if ever!).