Wouldn't It be Loverly?

So I'm remodeling a bathroom and don't have time to do what matters- like writing to the internets. But wasn't, I guess we're calling it Obama's More Perfect Union Speech, wasn't that inspiring? If it wasn't, I guess we know what kind of racist you are.

In a nutshell, everyone's a racist. Racism is the pollution for which we've created acceptable levels. It's the smog we live with even though it kills us. Those that say it's not a problem are part of the problem, especially if they say it's not a problem because it's all in the past or they have somehow overcome it. Similar to the way you directly fund terrorism, slavery, dictatorships, etc... by buying just about anything, we live in a world that depends upon racist categories and elements to sustain itself. Our very ways of thinking are infected by racism- to lesser and greater degrees of course- but it's all around us. To say what's been said before, if you don't see this, it's because you are blinded by this spirit of racism, and so as morbidly racist as the robe wearing racists we all know and love.

You think like a racist. You have a racist mother. You're raising racist children. You support a racist community. Deal with it.

Dealing with it matters.

It's the way Obama deals with it in this speech that is so refreshing and hopeful. (Can I still say hope without paying royalties?) It's no good to deny that racism colors our lives. We're not beyond it. You're not beyond it. It's also worthless to stop at the point of saying this or that thing is racist. Though at least with the former, we're addressing the beast, even if only in the most preliminary way. Addressing it, looking at it, acknowledging that it's there (and really acknowledging it requires confronting the evil manifest by it; it's not simply an attitude, it's the concrete results in history). But Obama- Right (wistful sigh). The way he deals with it, or more precisely the way he says we might deal with it- what a difference from a We're the Best-Love It or Leave It-Critics Aid Our Enemies-Nothing is Required of You But Your Presence candy shell covering an I'll Protect You from Them chewy center. It is so not an I'll Take Care of Everything, Go About Your Business politics of autonomy. Something is required of "us" and it's not a sense of "us" built on fear of "them" or preserving some form of perfection already achieved.

"The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow."

What the heck is this? Who am I now that I listen to this guy and think, "That's right, let's do this, we're in this together, what can I do to help?"?

Now that that's off of my chest, I can go back to ripping up a floor.

Oh, and Happy Belated Anniversary
Mrs. Robinson- Simon and Garfunkel
No Woman No Cry- Bob Marley and the Wailers
Diamond Dogs- Beck
The Wind- Cat Stevens