When I look at Barak Obama, I see my Uncle Rufus. A good man. A family man. But a man with negroid features which barred him from the American Dream™.
I was born in 1951, and lived between New Orleans and New York. I am more than half white, but my uncle could not escape his blackness. His daughters inherited none of his blackness. I inherited none. Except maybe black shiny eyes. I have "good hair", and "fine features." My brother has "course hair." But fine features. Uncle Rufus had yellow skin, and thick lips. He couldn't pass, but his daughters could.
DENVER -- There are many images I will never forget following this week at the DNC. But I haven't been inside the real halls of power most of the week. An activist's view probably isn't what a delegate or certainly not what a VeryImportantPerson might expect. But I think perhaps my view was just fine.
The police presence has been incredible. It takes an awful lot of riot sticks, tear gas guns, rope and body shields to make sure the Dem's perimiter's are secure. I used to live in Denver, and this is one of the images that just doesn't mesh with my view of the city. And I'm not at all sure it was all entirely necessary.
It makes me think Denver has either become a very unsafe city or that we have so many pissed off people in the country that even the Democrats have to brace for the attack of the non-ruling class. And since I keep hearing everyone say "It's necessary," with regard to the intense security, I suspect that it's what the city's leaders felt necessary from a wide variety of perspectives.
The protest rally I attended was filled with good music, powerful messages and people trying to have their voices heard and acknowledged during the Dem's convention week.
It's been an exciting week for me. Last October, I moved back to Denver from the San Francisco Bay Area. I did so to give my two small boys a better chance at a quality education and to provide a safer environment for my two mixed race sons to grow up in. Please understand, as you parents out there surely do, they are my reason for being.
Everyone knows that tomorrow is the 45th Anniversary of the famous "I Have A Dream" Speech and the march on Washington led by Martin Luther King, Jr. On that day, King addressed a crowd of over 200,000 saying:
"This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day."
While this historic date cannot be downplayed, there is an anniversary tomorrow that is forgotten and has not mentioned in any news that I have seen:
The Death of Emmett Till
This quote could be (and considering CNNs track record of late, likely is) completely out of context, but I found it too hilarious not to check. Here's the story link, about the GOP congratulating Dems for nominating a black candidate:
Not really worthy of a diary, however, permit me to say "it's time to dig deep people." We are one! We are a family. The issues have been laid bare. We know the difference... we know the choice. There is only one candidate who believes what you believe. There is only one candidate who will do what you would do.
Do you have $10? How about $20? Now is the time to donate! WE HAVE THE TEAM TO WIN - LET'S GET THEM THERE! (BTW, for $15 you get a magnet!)
As day three of the convention winds down, the crowd was treated to an unexpected visitor and we all got a preview of tomorrow night.
In other news, rumor has it that John McCain will name his running mate tomorrow ahead of Barack Obama's speech. It's hard to decide whether to laugh at the thought of a green screen running mate, or roll our collective eyes at what kind of a petty, petty person would do that. And if it turns out to be only a rumor, I'll apologize for calling him petty. I will, however, still call him an asshole.
Biden's speech began with lovely tributes to his family, including his mother, of whom he said:
My mother's creed is the American creed: no one is better than you. You are everyone's equal, and everyone is equal to you.
Biden ends by using his authority on foreign policy to detail how Obama's foreign policy judgment has time and again been correct while McCain has been wrong. Biden's foreign policy judgment will not be substituted for Obama's; instead, his credibility will be used to affirm Obama's judgment.
John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama was right -- again, and again, and again, on the most important national security issues of our time, John McCain was wrong and Barack Obama has been proven right.
And here comes Obama, introduced by Biden's wife Jill.
Who is she? Who is the carefully groomed and scripted Debra Bartoshevich in McCain's new ad "Debra"?
Is she a lifelong Democrat, a Hillary backer who switched to McCain because Obama lacks "experience"? That is what she and her PUMA admirers claim. But the YouTube video at the top of this post, an unscripted interview with a local reporter, tells a far different story. What lifelong Democrat says, as she does repeatedly, "Democrat party"? And why was the McCain team already so poised to recruit her that she got a phone call from them "approximately three minutes" after Hillary Clinton's June 5 concession speech?
Her strange journey to center stage of McCain's Democrat-switcher campaign began long before that campaign gleefully leaked to reporters their coup in persuading one of Wisconsin's Hillary Clinton delegates to pledge publicly she would vote for John McCain. Read on below the fold!
So, I blogged over at UnionReview and Uniongal that IAFF endorsed Obama. For those of you who don't know, IAFF endorsed Mike DeWine in Ohio for Senate despite Sherrod Brown's support among the locals. The IAFF (International Association of Fire Fighters) endorsed Huckabee in the primary (and Dodd). They've even endorsed Christ (yep, Charlie) and Jim Douglas (VT). Sure, they endorsed Kerry, but this endorsement is really different. This time, the endorsement really packed a punch AND, guess who represented Obama to the IAFF at the National Convention, come on guess. Biden.
Okay, enough giber gabbering, let's talk IAFF and let's hear what they had to say...
