A New Beginning?

Just a few short hours after the inauguration of the first African American President Racism rears its ugly head. I thought this election was supposed to prove that racism is over in America. This election was supposed to prove that we’re ALL Americans without any descriptive adjectives before or after the word “American”. We are all just AMERICANS.

I went to the CVS Pharmacy tonight after dinner to get some cold medicine for my daughter. As I’m at the register paying for the medicine two African American citizens entered the store. As soon as they see the White/Caucasian clerk and myself they start chanting “O-bama, O-bama, O-bama” then laugh as they disappear into the depths of the store. Neither of us bothered to acknowledge their stupidity.

Is this where we’re headed? We’ve just traded one race issue for another? At a time when race is supposed to no longer be an issue are some foolish souls going to start a race war?

I read an article a few months back where the author wrote about the possibility that some African American people may feel empowered by Obama’s election and take it out on White people. He claimed that some less-enlightened African Americans will feel their race is now in charge and that they will get “even” with the White race. I didn’t want to believe something like that was possible. “Americans” are supposed to be above that regardless of race, creed or color. After all, we have our first African American President. The countries that brought slavery to our shores, England, France and Spain, have never had an African President.

Let’s hope for all our sake that this is an isolated incident. Although, contrary to my actions sometimes; it has been pointed out to me that I am not the center of the Universe. Thus, this probably isn’t an isolated incident. So, we’ll just have to hope it’s just a celebratory act of exuberance and all will be well once everyone realizes he’s only human. After all, he is half white as well.

To Watch or not to Watch

No, we’re not ALL giddy with tingling legs about watching the upcoming Presidential Inauguration. According to the mainstream media that anointed the “great one” you’d think that all 305 million Americans will be glued to their TV’s on that fateful day. Nope, sorry.

They forget that 48% of us DID NOT vote for him. 48% of us don’t want him anywhere near the White House to be sitting behind the most powerful desk in the free world. 48% of us would rather have that grumpy old McCain puttering around the White House in a baseball cap and T-Shirt that reads “Wouldn’t you like to be a Maverick too?”

While some mainstream media outlets are making it sound like most of us can’t wait until noon on January 20th 2009 to watch our new leader take the reigns a more un-biased Rasmussen Reports poll says differently. According to Rasmussen 28% will watch the whole thing. Not quite a majority. Another 18% will watch “most” of it. That’s a total of 46% and still not a majority. Remember, he got 52% of the popular vote so not even ALL of them will be watching most or all of the glitzy Hollywood style event.

Another 29% say they’ll watch “some” of the event. If “some” equates to accidentally flipping through one of the 927 channels overplaying the event then I might accidentally fall into that category while searching for Gilligan’s Island re-runs.

So, that leaves the 21% who aren’t planning to watch any of the event at all and the 4% who aren’t sure. Aren’t sure? I’m guessing the 4% who aren’t sure just won’t answer for fear of being called a racist. Wow, we’ve come a long way baby.

To sum up; 54% will watch “some” or none of the event while 46% will watch “most” or “all” of the event. Again, hardly a landslide.