That Clinton or McCain would engage in this type of pure political pandering is not surprising. It’s exemplifies the old Washington gamesmanship that we need to change. This may not be the single most irresponsible policy idea of the year, but it must've been formulated by somebody thinking only about votes, not reality. Let's drive up demand and keep sending money to big oil and middle eastern zillionaires. Obama's honesty makes them both look like old-school politicians more beholden to corporate interests than worried about what's good for the U.S.A. Oh. Right.
read more | digg story
Monday, May 05, 2008
Hillary Clinton To "Stick It" To Black Voters With "Nuclear Option"
Well, it's not like she's got the Black vote, so Senator Hillary Clinton - in a desparate attempt to gain delegates over Senator Barack Obama, is going to use what she calls "a nuclear option" which would certainly detroy the Democratic Party. Clinton wants Florida and Michigan delegates to be counted. Which is fine -- but Clinton herself signed a contract not to count or campaign in those states because they broke the DNC rules.
Even Clinton said a few months ago, that Florida and Michigan don't count. But now here's this nuclear option -- it's all about Clinton and to hell with the party.
These are the scenarios to watch for according to the Huffington Post:
Using the Rules and Bylaws Committee to force the seating of two pro-Hillary delegations would provoke a massive outcry from Obama forces. Such a strategy would, additionally, face at least two other major hurdles, and could only be attempted, according to sources in the Clinton camp, under specific circumstances:
First, this coming Tuesday, Clinton would have to win Indiana and lose North Carolina by a very small margin - or better yet, win the Tar Heel state. She would also have to demonstrate continued strength in the contests before May 31.
Second, and equally important, her argument that she is a better general election candidate than Obama -- that he has major weaknesses which have only been recently revealed -- would have to rapidly gain traction, not only within the media, where she has experienced some success, but within the broad activist ranks of the Democratic Party.
Under that optimistic scenario, some Clinton operatives believe she could overcome several massive stumbling blocks:
-- Clinton loyalists on the Rules Committee would have to be persuaded to put their political futures on the line by defying major party constituencies, especially black leaders backing Barack Obama. Committee members are unlikely to take such a step unless they are convinced that Clinton has a strong chance of winning the nomination.
Former DNC and South Carolina Democratic Party chair Donald Fowler -- a Hillary loyalist -- would, for example, face an outpouring of anger from South Carolina Democrats if he were to go along with such a strategy.
-- A controversial decision to seat the two delegations, as currently constituted, would be appealed by the Obama campaign to the Democratic National Convention's Credentials Committee.
The full make-up of the Credentials Committee will not be determined until all the primaries are completed, but the pattern of Clinton and Obama victories so far clearly suggests that Obama delegates on that committee will outnumber Clinton delegates. Obama will not, however, have a majority, according to most estimates, and the balance of power will be held by delegates appointed by DNC chair Howard Dean.
Regardess, it's clear the DNC Chairman Howard Dean's in danger of losing control of the party. He'd better think of a "nuclear option" of his own.
Even Clinton said a few months ago, that Florida and Michigan don't count. But now here's this nuclear option -- it's all about Clinton and to hell with the party.
These are the scenarios to watch for according to the Huffington Post:
Using the Rules and Bylaws Committee to force the seating of two pro-Hillary delegations would provoke a massive outcry from Obama forces. Such a strategy would, additionally, face at least two other major hurdles, and could only be attempted, according to sources in the Clinton camp, under specific circumstances:
First, this coming Tuesday, Clinton would have to win Indiana and lose North Carolina by a very small margin - or better yet, win the Tar Heel state. She would also have to demonstrate continued strength in the contests before May 31.
Second, and equally important, her argument that she is a better general election candidate than Obama -- that he has major weaknesses which have only been recently revealed -- would have to rapidly gain traction, not only within the media, where she has experienced some success, but within the broad activist ranks of the Democratic Party.
Under that optimistic scenario, some Clinton operatives believe she could overcome several massive stumbling blocks:
-- Clinton loyalists on the Rules Committee would have to be persuaded to put their political futures on the line by defying major party constituencies, especially black leaders backing Barack Obama. Committee members are unlikely to take such a step unless they are convinced that Clinton has a strong chance of winning the nomination.
Former DNC and South Carolina Democratic Party chair Donald Fowler -- a Hillary loyalist -- would, for example, face an outpouring of anger from South Carolina Democrats if he were to go along with such a strategy.
-- A controversial decision to seat the two delegations, as currently constituted, would be appealed by the Obama campaign to the Democratic National Convention's Credentials Committee.
The full make-up of the Credentials Committee will not be determined until all the primaries are completed, but the pattern of Clinton and Obama victories so far clearly suggests that Obama delegates on that committee will outnumber Clinton delegates. Obama will not, however, have a majority, according to most estimates, and the balance of power will be held by delegates appointed by DNC chair Howard Dean.
Regardess, it's clear the DNC Chairman Howard Dean's in danger of losing control of the party. He'd better think of a "nuclear option" of his own.
Indiana's Incredible Shrinking Voter List - Email From Black Box Voting
I posted this as is. It's scary to know that Indiana does not have it's voting records intact. It's even scarier to learn that people don't seem to care. Why? Read below to learn the details of the problem, as to the lack of concern, your guess is as good as mine. This kind of voter records / recording problem hurt Senator Obama before in New Hampshire, with it's screwed up voting machines.
From: Black Box Voting [mailto:blackboxvoting@worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 4:41 AM
To: lpease@gte.net
Subject: BBV report: Exclusive - Indiana's Incredible Shrinking Voter
List
In April 2008 when Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita announced the
release of "record high" voter registration rolls, with 4.3 million
voters set to vote in the Tuesday May 6 primary, he didn't mention that
a whopping 1,134,427 voter registrations have been cancelled.
Now, the voter rolls are supposed to be tidied up prior to each
election. Indiana's last general election was in Nov. 2006, and they
have had a slew of special and general elections since then. So how have
1.1 million voters -- 26 percent of the current statewide list --
escaped the voter registration cleanup squad? Who are these million
voters and where do they come from?
One quarter-million of them come from just two northwestern Indiana
counties: Lake and Porter. Lake County reports purging 137,164 voters
and neighboring Porter County cancelled out 124,958 voters.
Lake County, the home of Gary, Indiana, has spawned the Jackson Five and
a great old musical (The Music Man) and has been referred to as "the
second most liberal county in America." Lake County also has one of the
heaviest concentrations of African-American voters that you'll find
anywhere in the USA.
Nearby Porter County, the home of Valparaiso, is 95% white and went
solidly for Bush in the 2004 election. It's also got a lot of college
students.
For whatever reason, these two counties had ... what ... massive data
entry problems? Exceptionally messy records? Lots of dead people who
climbed back into their graves? I truly hope we aren't going to see a
lot of disappointed voters on Tuesday, when they perhaps learn that they
were among the lucky million people who got purged.
HERE'S WHERE THE HEAVIEST INDIANA PURGES ARE:
Lake 137,164 48% (Gary)
Porter 124,958 115% (Valparaiso)
Marion 68,120 10% (Indianapolis)
Monroe 66,009 85% (Bloomington)
Tippecanoe 53,456 58%
Madison 42,952 47% (Anderson)
Hamilton 42,325 26%
Here's a picture map with the numbers and percentages for the whole
state:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/cancelled-from-indiana-voter-rolls.png
The percentage represents the ratio of the number of purges to the
current voter list. Example: If a location currently has 100,000 voters
on its rolls, and purged 53,000 along the way, we assign a ratio of 53%
to the purge vs. current list.
It would be nice to have the original quantities, it would make for a
cleaner number, but this is not available on the Secretary of State's
Web site, so I haven't got a tidier statistic for you, wish I did. I
also wish the time period for these purges was clearly indicated, but it
is not indicated -- nor can it be derived -- from available information
at Indiana's official election Web site.
TOOLS YOU CAN USE
It's always interesting to look for impossible numbers on election
night, like the "more votes than voters" situation that sometimes crops
up. It speeds things up to have a place to plug the information in. Here
is a spreadsheet -- quick and not too fancy, I'm sure you can improve on
it. It has every Indiana county, along with their official registered
voter statistics for the 2008 primary, and some historical data from
1992 to the present, along with links for the source documents from the
secretary of state:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/IN/state/quickrank-INDIANAreg.xls
(Excel file, 71 KB)
Here are links that may be very good to provide additional statistical
information which you can plug in:
http://www.in.gov/sos/elections/elections/index.html
And here is a link to the source document containing the cancelled
registration information used for this article:
http://www.in.gov/sos/elections/pdfs/Statewide_Voter_Count_by_County5.1.
08.pdf
Here's a quick spreadsheet with the Indiana voting machines by county --
you can get that on the Sec. State's Web site too, but it's not in a
database format. You can cut and paste these into your analysis sheets
if you'd like to get comparisons of results by county.
AND NOW ABOUT THOSE VOTING MACHINES
Another press release on the Indiana Secretary of State's Web site deals
with the $360,000 penalty he's hitting Microvote with for failing to
follow the law. Oh yes, and the Microvote Infinity voting machine, which
will be very widely used in the Tuesday May 6 primary, has been
DECERTIFIED!
That's not going to stop anyone in Indiana from using it, however. The
decision was that anyone who already bought these things gets to use
them -- despite the fact that these machines have been embroiled in
lawsuits in at least three places, one in Pennsylvania for machines that
just didn't work, and two in Tennessee where candidates have asked to
redo elections due to bizarre anomalies -- like vote totals that
wandered away in the wee hours of the night.
Microvote's insurance company declined to cover the firm, according to
yet another lawsuit, because the insurance company alleged that
Microvote was selling defective products. The judge ruled against the
insurance company, saying the product wasn't defective, it just didn't
work.
I haven't plugged this in yet, but those of you who are comfortable with
spreadsheets can quickly add the voting machines by county to your voter
registration spreadsheet, using that voting machine spreadsheet I linked
above, to see how many votes all together will be subjected to
Microvote.
Ah, but we aren't done with Indiana voting machines yet. Indiana is also
fond of the ES&S paperless iVotronic touch-screens, the ones that lost
18,000 votes in Sarasota County Florida and were the subject of a
blistering report by Dan Rather. In Rather's report, he showed shocking
footage of the touch-screens being manufactured in a sweat shop in the
Philippines. Their quality control test was to shake the machine and if
it didn't rattle, it passed the test.
THINGS YOU CAN DO ABOUT INDIANA
1. Do some public records requests to either the state or the counties,
and ask for their VRG-5 form, which is the NVRA tracking form on which
the number of voters purged must be reported.
For tips on how to do the records requests, here's our tool kit, scroll
down to the section on public records:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/toolkit.html
Post the documents and ask for any advice you need here, and report your
front-lines information for both Indiana and North Carolina here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/73/73.html
I'm pushing hard right now to get TOOL KIT 2008 done -- it's a
stripped-down model with emergency measures for the fall election.
Unless you tell me not to, I'll let you know as soon as it's ready for
download.
2. Another useful form you can request: The CEB-9 form, which is the
Indiana County Election Report that must be turned in after the
election. Here's one, take a look at the information it contains:
http://www.in.gov/sos/elections/pdfs/CEB-9.pdf
3. If you are a number-cruncher, grab the spreadsheets here and wail on
'em during Election night. You can get additional historical information
from this site:
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html
(Choose the drop-down menu "general by state" and select Indiana, then
choose the year you want. Confusion factor -- this site color-codes
Republican as blue and Democrat as Red. Has lots of good stuff).
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE: People usually catch things like "more votes
than voters" weeks after the election. The dang Indiana information
doesn't break voter registrations out by party which makes crunching the
primary numbers a little harder. But you may still get the jump on some
red flags if you track this stuff as it's coming in on spreadsheets that
tell you what the stats are going in.
A WORD ABOUT THE TV PROJECTIONS
You'll notice that those projections often change -- sometimes
dramatically -- just an hour or so later. That's because we have learned
that they are paying elections officials (through their associations or
otherwise) to call and fax them the results off the voting machine poll
tape.
In fact, the National Election Pool (used to be Voter News Service) is
getting this stuff BEFORE the election officials and way before the
secretary of state.
The first number they quote is the adjusted exit poll number, and it
comes from asking people about who they voted for. The point here is,
when what you thought was "exit polls" suddenly changes, that is the
impact of those called-in poll tape results. Yep. That's the voting
machines talking, and when they say something different than the people
answering the exit pollers' questions, we should be looking at the
programming on the machine, not the exit pollers, for answers.
I expect to see early projections altered significantly as soon as those
poll tape numbers are called in to NEP.
So to recap, good things to do Tuesday:
1. Public records
2. Number crunching
3. Pray
Good luck to us, all,
Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
Please help us protect 2008, muster up the "Dream Teams" for field work,
print the Tool Kits...
We are supported ENTIRELY through small citizen donations.
TO DONATE: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
to mail:
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98057
From: Black Box Voting [mailto:blackboxvoting@worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 4:41 AM
To: lpease@gte.net
Subject: BBV report: Exclusive - Indiana's Incredible Shrinking Voter
List
In April 2008 when Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita announced the
release of "record high" voter registration rolls, with 4.3 million
voters set to vote in the Tuesday May 6 primary, he didn't mention that
a whopping 1,134,427 voter registrations have been cancelled.
Now, the voter rolls are supposed to be tidied up prior to each
election. Indiana's last general election was in Nov. 2006, and they
have had a slew of special and general elections since then. So how have
1.1 million voters -- 26 percent of the current statewide list --
escaped the voter registration cleanup squad? Who are these million
voters and where do they come from?
One quarter-million of them come from just two northwestern Indiana
counties: Lake and Porter. Lake County reports purging 137,164 voters
and neighboring Porter County cancelled out 124,958 voters.
Lake County, the home of Gary, Indiana, has spawned the Jackson Five and
a great old musical (The Music Man) and has been referred to as "the
second most liberal county in America." Lake County also has one of the
heaviest concentrations of African-American voters that you'll find
anywhere in the USA.
Nearby Porter County, the home of Valparaiso, is 95% white and went
solidly for Bush in the 2004 election. It's also got a lot of college
students.
For whatever reason, these two counties had ... what ... massive data
entry problems? Exceptionally messy records? Lots of dead people who
climbed back into their graves? I truly hope we aren't going to see a
lot of disappointed voters on Tuesday, when they perhaps learn that they
were among the lucky million people who got purged.
HERE'S WHERE THE HEAVIEST INDIANA PURGES ARE:
Lake 137,164 48% (Gary)
Porter 124,958 115% (Valparaiso)
Marion 68,120 10% (Indianapolis)
Monroe 66,009 85% (Bloomington)
Tippecanoe 53,456 58%
Madison 42,952 47% (Anderson)
Hamilton 42,325 26%
Here's a picture map with the numbers and percentages for the whole
state:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/cancelled-from-indiana-voter-rolls.png
The percentage represents the ratio of the number of purges to the
current voter list. Example: If a location currently has 100,000 voters
on its rolls, and purged 53,000 along the way, we assign a ratio of 53%
to the purge vs. current list.
It would be nice to have the original quantities, it would make for a
cleaner number, but this is not available on the Secretary of State's
Web site, so I haven't got a tidier statistic for you, wish I did. I
also wish the time period for these purges was clearly indicated, but it
is not indicated -- nor can it be derived -- from available information
at Indiana's official election Web site.
TOOLS YOU CAN USE
It's always interesting to look for impossible numbers on election
night, like the "more votes than voters" situation that sometimes crops
up. It speeds things up to have a place to plug the information in. Here
is a spreadsheet -- quick and not too fancy, I'm sure you can improve on
it. It has every Indiana county, along with their official registered
voter statistics for the 2008 primary, and some historical data from
1992 to the present, along with links for the source documents from the
secretary of state:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/IN/state/quickrank-INDIANAreg.xls
(Excel file, 71 KB)
Here are links that may be very good to provide additional statistical
information which you can plug in:
http://www.in.gov/sos/elections/elections/index.html
And here is a link to the source document containing the cancelled
registration information used for this article:
http://www.in.gov/sos/elections/pdfs/Statewide_Voter_Count_by_County5.1.
08.pdf
Here's a quick spreadsheet with the Indiana voting machines by county --
you can get that on the Sec. State's Web site too, but it's not in a
database format. You can cut and paste these into your analysis sheets
if you'd like to get comparisons of results by county.
AND NOW ABOUT THOSE VOTING MACHINES
Another press release on the Indiana Secretary of State's Web site deals
with the $360,000 penalty he's hitting Microvote with for failing to
follow the law. Oh yes, and the Microvote Infinity voting machine, which
will be very widely used in the Tuesday May 6 primary, has been
DECERTIFIED!
That's not going to stop anyone in Indiana from using it, however. The
decision was that anyone who already bought these things gets to use
them -- despite the fact that these machines have been embroiled in
lawsuits in at least three places, one in Pennsylvania for machines that
just didn't work, and two in Tennessee where candidates have asked to
redo elections due to bizarre anomalies -- like vote totals that
wandered away in the wee hours of the night.
Microvote's insurance company declined to cover the firm, according to
yet another lawsuit, because the insurance company alleged that
Microvote was selling defective products. The judge ruled against the
insurance company, saying the product wasn't defective, it just didn't
work.
I haven't plugged this in yet, but those of you who are comfortable with
spreadsheets can quickly add the voting machines by county to your voter
registration spreadsheet, using that voting machine spreadsheet I linked
above, to see how many votes all together will be subjected to
Microvote.
Ah, but we aren't done with Indiana voting machines yet. Indiana is also
fond of the ES&S paperless iVotronic touch-screens, the ones that lost
18,000 votes in Sarasota County Florida and were the subject of a
blistering report by Dan Rather. In Rather's report, he showed shocking
footage of the touch-screens being manufactured in a sweat shop in the
Philippines. Their quality control test was to shake the machine and if
it didn't rattle, it passed the test.
THINGS YOU CAN DO ABOUT INDIANA
1. Do some public records requests to either the state or the counties,
and ask for their VRG-5 form, which is the NVRA tracking form on which
the number of voters purged must be reported.
For tips on how to do the records requests, here's our tool kit, scroll
down to the section on public records:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/toolkit.html
Post the documents and ask for any advice you need here, and report your
front-lines information for both Indiana and North Carolina here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/73/73.html
I'm pushing hard right now to get TOOL KIT 2008 done -- it's a
stripped-down model with emergency measures for the fall election.
Unless you tell me not to, I'll let you know as soon as it's ready for
download.
2. Another useful form you can request: The CEB-9 form, which is the
Indiana County Election Report that must be turned in after the
election. Here's one, take a look at the information it contains:
http://www.in.gov/sos/elections/pdfs/CEB-9.pdf
3. If you are a number-cruncher, grab the spreadsheets here and wail on
'em during Election night. You can get additional historical information
from this site:
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html
(Choose the drop-down menu "general by state" and select Indiana, then
choose the year you want. Confusion factor -- this site color-codes
Republican as blue and Democrat as Red. Has lots of good stuff).
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE: People usually catch things like "more votes
than voters" weeks after the election. The dang Indiana information
doesn't break voter registrations out by party which makes crunching the
primary numbers a little harder. But you may still get the jump on some
red flags if you track this stuff as it's coming in on spreadsheets that
tell you what the stats are going in.
A WORD ABOUT THE TV PROJECTIONS
You'll notice that those projections often change -- sometimes
dramatically -- just an hour or so later. That's because we have learned
that they are paying elections officials (through their associations or
otherwise) to call and fax them the results off the voting machine poll
tape.
In fact, the National Election Pool (used to be Voter News Service) is
getting this stuff BEFORE the election officials and way before the
secretary of state.
The first number they quote is the adjusted exit poll number, and it
comes from asking people about who they voted for. The point here is,
when what you thought was "exit polls" suddenly changes, that is the
impact of those called-in poll tape results. Yep. That's the voting
machines talking, and when they say something different than the people
answering the exit pollers' questions, we should be looking at the
programming on the machine, not the exit pollers, for answers.
I expect to see early projections altered significantly as soon as those
poll tape numbers are called in to NEP.
So to recap, good things to do Tuesday:
1. Public records
2. Number crunching
3. Pray
Good luck to us, all,
Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
Please help us protect 2008, muster up the "Dream Teams" for field work,
print the Tool Kits...
We are supported ENTIRELY through small citizen donations.
TO DONATE: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
to mail:
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98057
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Startup Camp - Meetings On Blogs and Social Networks
I'll post videos from this event soon, but now I'm listening to a panel that features Matt Marshall of VentureBeat, noted Social Media expert Brian Solis, and others talking about social networks. Social networks -- er, the conversation about them -- have dominated this conference.
The conference is great for networking and I've met -- already -- a number of people I've either seen at other tech events like VentureBeat's great party last Thursday, to people I will be doing business with.
The conference is great for networking and I've met -- already -- a number of people I've either seen at other tech events like VentureBeat's great party last Thursday, to people I will be doing business with.
Sun's Jon Schwartz Getting Hit On Lack Of Java Support For Mac
This is still part of the live blog of the Startup Camp and at this point in the Q and A, and Sun CEO Jon Schwartz is getting hit on the perceived lack of support that Sun provides for Java for the Mac. At first he was combative, but settled down and listened.
It's over now. Yeah!
It's over now. Yeah!
Sun's Jon Schwartz Presents Startup Camp On Sunday Morning - Live Blog
Ok, I decided to not sleep late or go to Church, which is what I should do, and come to this something that's called "Startup Camp" in San Francisco. I'm late so I missed the breakfast, but I came to meet other entrepreneurs and find out better how to raise money for Sports Business Simulations.
Right now, I'm listening to Sun Microsystems CEO Jon Schwartz talk about why Sun's interested in startups and he's going through a Q andA about Microsoft's failure to aquire Yahoo. Generally, he's happy because it means that there's still competition in the marketplace; acquisition of companies like Yahoo by Microsoft hurt that, which hurts Sun's market for new customers.
On Cloud Computing
Jon says that Sun introduced a way to buy time on high performance supercomputers, but that didn't go well. It's time-sharing. But after conversations with the lawyers of big companies it was found that they -- the companies -- didn't want to share clouds with other firms.
Sun is an infrastructure provider. He says that Facebook is a cloud service -- but not for computing, for social networking.
This interview is more about Sun and really not about startups at all at this point. It would be nice to get back to the conversation about the Startup market. Just because Sun's the sponsor doesn't mean that we have to hear about Sun and not startups, or only about startups in the context of Sun.
Yes, the conference is free, but that's no excuse.
Maybe when the questions are opened to the audience that will change.
Jon just kind of busted out the interviewer over a question regarding reducing the workforce. When Jon turned the quesrtion back to him, the interviewer said "I'm a capitalist" -- Jon said "Well, 'm not. That sounds like a sweatshop to me." That got a lot of applause. Good for Jon.
Right now, I'm listening to Sun Microsystems CEO Jon Schwartz talk about why Sun's interested in startups and he's going through a Q andA about Microsoft's failure to aquire Yahoo. Generally, he's happy because it means that there's still competition in the marketplace; acquisition of companies like Yahoo by Microsoft hurt that, which hurts Sun's market for new customers.
On Cloud Computing
Jon says that Sun introduced a way to buy time on high performance supercomputers, but that didn't go well. It's time-sharing. But after conversations with the lawyers of big companies it was found that they -- the companies -- didn't want to share clouds with other firms.
Sun is an infrastructure provider. He says that Facebook is a cloud service -- but not for computing, for social networking.
This interview is more about Sun and really not about startups at all at this point. It would be nice to get back to the conversation about the Startup market. Just because Sun's the sponsor doesn't mean that we have to hear about Sun and not startups, or only about startups in the context of Sun.
Yes, the conference is free, but that's no excuse.
Maybe when the questions are opened to the audience that will change.
Jon just kind of busted out the interviewer over a question regarding reducing the workforce. When Jon turned the quesrtion back to him, the interviewer said "I'm a capitalist" -- Jon said "Well, 'm not. That sounds like a sweatshop to me." That got a lot of applause. Good for Jon.
Barack Obama , Rev Wright and My Iron Man Suit
I thank the SF Chronicle's Editorial Page editor John Diaz for the chance to write the essay below that appears in the Sunday May 4th edition of "Sunday Insight" and is below this video:
I've been a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama for president for 17 months, and one large reason is that he's like me. We share the same Aug. 4 birthday, and have walked similar paths of racial discovery.
Both of us have carved out our niche as individuals able to walk in different circles and still be ourselves. That's not easy; it comes as those around you tell you what they think your "place" in life should be. It's no wonder that I felt violated by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's National Press Club speech, as much as Obama did.
Wright made me put on my Iron Man suit again.
My Iron Man suit is a carefully constructed armor I created when I was a 6-year-old boy on the predominantly black South Side of Chicago to protect me from the other kids in the neighborhood. See, to them, I was not "black" - I talked "white" and was "smart." I didn't fight or play basketball - and didn't want to - but those were the prerequisites for popularity at the time.
The suit was my knowledge of everything from politics to Chicago architecture to airplanes and cars and "Star Trek." My suit allowed me to tune out those who said "you need to act black to be black."
The Iron Man suit was also used to protect me from anyone white who thought I should fit a common black stereotype. My Iron Man suit has "Repulsor Rays" I use to shoot "protons" of knowledge to prove I was smarter than anyone else in the room. I used the suit to judge anyone as being less intelligent than me if they didn't have a diverse base of friends - if all they had were, for example, white friends.
But a funny thing happened as I grew up. American culture changed such that I needed my suit less and less. More people accepted me as an individual. American pop culture became more diverse. There were more interracial relationships, and no one seemed to care. The guy who runs American Express was black - still is.
But the best thing was that no one was telling me my place; I'd successfully defined it and society - through generational change - kind of "caught up" to me. Or so I thought.
One problem remains, and Barack's dealing with it. In being the first African American who's one step closer to the Most Powerful Job in The World than any black person before him, Obama is faced not just with doing something "blacks don't do" but with upsetting people who wish he would know "his place."
This "placeism" that Barack and I have had to battle with has come back in the face of Wright and yes, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who worked to remind us that whatever we do, we're still just black.
Both represent the old generation. Hey, so does my mom, and I love her to death. She has struggled for years to get me to take off the suit, and finally gave up.
Mom totally understood Wright's anger, but knows why I have the suit, too.
I don't think Wright's outcry came from a desire to show up Barack, but to scream "Hey. I'm black and proud! You're not going to define me!"
What I didn't like - and got into an argument with my mom about - was that Wright didn't think about success for African Americans of the younger generation like Barack or myself; Wright was consumed with his anger.
And in expressing his anger - in his choice to show his "blackness" and insult Barack's integrity - he made me put my suit on. I think mom realized where I was coming from before I went into full suit mode. She's on my side now.
I resent anyone telling me what kind of black person I should be. I will turn away if one says that I'm the only black person in the room. I don't like it when someone works to wreck the success of a black person just because that person's not "stereotypically black." In my view, that's what Wright did and he owes Obama, and me, an apology.
I've been a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama for president for 17 months, and one large reason is that he's like me. We share the same Aug. 4 birthday, and have walked similar paths of racial discovery.
Both of us have carved out our niche as individuals able to walk in different circles and still be ourselves. That's not easy; it comes as those around you tell you what they think your "place" in life should be. It's no wonder that I felt violated by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's National Press Club speech, as much as Obama did.
Wright made me put on my Iron Man suit again.
My Iron Man suit is a carefully constructed armor I created when I was a 6-year-old boy on the predominantly black South Side of Chicago to protect me from the other kids in the neighborhood. See, to them, I was not "black" - I talked "white" and was "smart." I didn't fight or play basketball - and didn't want to - but those were the prerequisites for popularity at the time.
The suit was my knowledge of everything from politics to Chicago architecture to airplanes and cars and "Star Trek." My suit allowed me to tune out those who said "you need to act black to be black."
The Iron Man suit was also used to protect me from anyone white who thought I should fit a common black stereotype. My Iron Man suit has "Repulsor Rays" I use to shoot "protons" of knowledge to prove I was smarter than anyone else in the room. I used the suit to judge anyone as being less intelligent than me if they didn't have a diverse base of friends - if all they had were, for example, white friends.
But a funny thing happened as I grew up. American culture changed such that I needed my suit less and less. More people accepted me as an individual. American pop culture became more diverse. There were more interracial relationships, and no one seemed to care. The guy who runs American Express was black - still is.
But the best thing was that no one was telling me my place; I'd successfully defined it and society - through generational change - kind of "caught up" to me. Or so I thought.
One problem remains, and Barack's dealing with it. In being the first African American who's one step closer to the Most Powerful Job in The World than any black person before him, Obama is faced not just with doing something "blacks don't do" but with upsetting people who wish he would know "his place."
This "placeism" that Barack and I have had to battle with has come back in the face of Wright and yes, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who worked to remind us that whatever we do, we're still just black.
Both represent the old generation. Hey, so does my mom, and I love her to death. She has struggled for years to get me to take off the suit, and finally gave up.
Mom totally understood Wright's anger, but knows why I have the suit, too.
I don't think Wright's outcry came from a desire to show up Barack, but to scream "Hey. I'm black and proud! You're not going to define me!"
What I didn't like - and got into an argument with my mom about - was that Wright didn't think about success for African Americans of the younger generation like Barack or myself; Wright was consumed with his anger.
And in expressing his anger - in his choice to show his "blackness" and insult Barack's integrity - he made me put my suit on. I think mom realized where I was coming from before I went into full suit mode. She's on my side now.
I resent anyone telling me what kind of black person I should be. I will turn away if one says that I'm the only black person in the room. I don't like it when someone works to wreck the success of a black person just because that person's not "stereotypically black." In my view, that's what Wright did and he owes Obama, and me, an apology.
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