President Obama it's your birthday; mine too!

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President Obama, it's August 4th, the day you were born in 1961 in Hawaii. Happy Birthday. It's also my birthday and I'm one year behind you. I didn't know that when we met at the Mark Hopkins on St. Patrick's Day of 2007, but when I realized we had that in common it made me reevaluate a lot of events in my life. On my birthday, I wish to share my thoughts with you and everyone.

For a long time I told people that because I was that one year behind you, I was always one year away from greatness. But I don't think that anymore. I'm great, just in a different way. You see, that you are president makes it ok for me to be who I've fought to be for most of my life: smart, confident, arrogant, caring, intellectual, nerdy, caring, a trekker, a vlogger, a blogger, and other adjectives - positive ones.

I fought to be me because I never wanted to be a stereotype. I have known black men who said they had two languages: "Black English" and English". One way of talking for us, the other way for everyone else. Me? I just had one way: standard English. And I worked to be articulate because I wanted to be arrogant - no it's not a good thing but it was a weapon. It was my shield from anyone regardless of color who would dare try and put me in a "box". I made sure they knew I didn't fit, even if I had to be intellectually intimidating. But around my friends, a group that formed because of our love for "Star Trek: The Original Series", even to the point of forming a Star Trek Club, I wasn't that way.

Well, one reason was because they were just like me, so I didn't have to use myself as a weapon, I could be me and be liked. It's no wonder they're still my friends to this day, and yes, all white or Asian save for two people. Didn't matter. They were and are my touchstone. If anyone wonders what good Star Trek TOS did for America here's my answer: it gave folks like me a "place to be".

But my "place to be" expanded far beyond Star Trek a long time ago. It did for a number of reasons, but most of all, the growth of our generation. As we, you and I, came of age, there were black men like us who were fighting the same fight but we didn't know each other until we reached adulthood. I could name a lot of names, but you know who they are and so do I. Our collective growth and the overall mainstreaming of elements of black culture, specifically "Hip Hop", really made it ok for me to be me and for you to become president.

Now, Hip Hop drew in teenage whites and with so many non-white girls enjoying the music, set the stage for interracial dating and for meeting black men who while they liked the music, didn't fit the black male stereotype. In fact, with both black and white men enjoying the music, all of us realized that we had not just the music in common but other activities as well. This really rapid social integration, something seldom talked about, is Hip Hop's gift to America.

America has melded, grown, and changed because of Hip Hop, and because of people like Bernard Shaw, CNN's amazing former anchor and someone many called "The Black Walter Cronkite". Your speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention marked the first time people of every stripe realized that we could have a black man as president. It was the first time people saw one of us on a national stage and accepted that person as something that person wanted to be - leader of the free world - and not a stereotype.

And now you're POTUS, and a good one at that.

So I say, Happy Birthday, Barack.

And thanks.