Walk a mile with me and Mr. Louboutin Re: Any Dem Will Do

Let me preface this by saying that I know this is a Democratic blogosphere so this may be both my first and last diary here. I know that your goal is to have some non-Bushish character in the White House (read: Democrat). I know you feel that McCain is more of George Bush. Therefore deductive reasoning would suggest that any democrat is better than McCain. I know that people are concerned about Supreme Court appointees (I do take this into consideration but it is admittedly not my number one issue). Knowing all that, let’s continue.....

About me: I was asked by a pollster what was more important to me, being black or being a woman. I was flabbergasted at the question, but I eventually picked being black. I mean there are numerically about the same number of women if not more than men, while black people make up ~12% of the US population. I’m only adding this because in order for you to understand my diary, you may need to know this fact which I eventually thought a lot about after that call.

The democratic party: historically my whole family has voted a str8 dem ticket. I remember my booth experiences being short as all get out because they only had to do the str8 ticket bubble: how disappointing!

Let us  travel back to 1992. We did polling in my 3rd grade class of who we would elect for president. I said Bill Clinton because Ross Perot had very big ears and I didn’t like the way Bush (daddy) said "Read my lips, no new taxes." I was 7; I mean I picked my president based on superficial things.

Let us fast-forward to 2000, I was generally pleased with the Clinton presidency, had a general affection for Bill Clinton, thought Hillary was great and knew she would run for president some day when I would gladly vote for her. On the other hand, Bush (son) was the governor of Texas, and there was a case of execution (can’t remember the guys name) and the eye-witness said she didn’t really get to look at the guy and all Mr. Bush (I love Michael Moore) had to do (for me) was grant a stay of execution just for the night. However, he did not so I didn’t like him (I was 15). No matter how I felt about Al Gore (I did like him), he would have been great because I didn’t like George Bush.

Let us fast-forward again to 2007. I went to see Obama’s rally here in Charlottesville. (let me just aside that I’m typing this in word first and I don’t like that under Obama’s name I get the red squiggly and the suggestion to change to Osama) At any rate, it was like a college fball game (and yes, we in the south love some football) without the alcohol—screaming, joy, and conversation between "fans" that don’t know each other. It was amazing, BUT on this date in October (I think) 2007, I was not a Barack Obama supporter. I was a Hillary supporter. I thought Obama was all dreams and this stuff would never get done.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Part of being a scientist means that I have a lot of down time while I’m waiting for cells to grow, treatments to occur. Well how did I spend my time? Researching the candidates of course. The more I read about Obama, the more I loved him. I said things like "he would be a great VP for Hillary and then he could be president". Then the transformation began... I’m not going to bash Hillary in this paragraph. I’m just gonna say I liked Barack’s plans better than hers. Now, he was MY candidate.

What happens next? Iowa happens and it’s like HOLY &$^#, white people like him too (of course I already knew this as I do live in Cville)! This is really cool! Trot on over to NH (we’re not going to talk about the tears but they affected me in the WRONG way) back to NV, and then down to SC— if there is one thing that rubs me wrong about the Clinton campaign it’s that she stays in states that she wins (like Ohio to give her victory speech) while skipping out on states that she loses in (like SC) and doesn’t mention her supporters there.

Anywho—the Jesse Jackson comment. Now excuse me in advance for lumping the vast majority of white people together, but many seem to think that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are somehow "leaders" of the black community. Don’t get me wrong, their voices are taken into consideration in a respect for elders kind of way, but they don’t particularly lead anything. I say this to say(to me) he picked someone who could be identified as basically the best black chance in the past and shot it all to smithereens saying basically look what happened to him.

You know what, maybe he didn’t mean it. I still kinda like Bill so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Let’s skip over Fl and Michigan to arrive at Super Tuesday. I think it was then that we got first talk of states mattering vs not mattering. Now, this ish right here bothers me, especially when it came to states with large AA populations. Just because a state has voted one way in the past doesn’t mean that can’t change, and it doesn’t mean you should not try. To say that one state matters more than others IMO says that the voters in one state matter more than others. Then where’s the lesson of every vote counts? Should I just not vote because I happen to live in NC? Heavens no! So we cycled and recycled through this the whole month of February.

I will also mention that her performance at the State of the Black Union was deplorable.  I have white friends (lmao that I said that). My two best white friends are Republican, and I love them to death! They do not try to overcompensate for their whiteness or my blackness by pretending to be something they are not. That’s what Hillary did for me at SOBU. It was as if someone gave her a list of black names she should throw around and she did it. It was a complete and utter mess!! Again another -10 for Hillary, and with the Seussish diary already in existence here today, I’ll put in one of my fav quotes:

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

We all know the debacle of the month of March, rejecting and denouncing--- ah I’ll comment on that. Let’s be honest here, Farrakhan would never support a woman if a man was an option, and he would never support a white person if a black person was an option. Barack never had to recruit his support, it was just going to be there. Anyways, caucus delegates, who won Texas, McCain and the CIC threshold, patriotism, Wrightgate etc etc etc. Everyday with every surrogate drives me farther and farther away until one day I decided I could never vote for Hillary.

As if I needed anymore validation for not voting for Hillary, people (read: white people) keep telling me how I feel. With this whole Wright situation, I turn on my tv to see white people telling me what goes on in the black church and to see white people telling me how I will vote, and I’m like WTF? Then I see the quote from Mr. Ickes,

There will be some hurt feelings initially, but in a very tight election, Barack Obama will swing in behind Hillary Clinton and black people will vote for her and she will be able to bring in Hispanic voters also.

To say this made me mad was an understatement!!!! I wrote him a letter:

Mr. Ickes,

You said:
"There will be some hurt feelings initially, but in a very tight election, Barack Obama will swing in behind Hillary Clinton and black people will vote for her and she will be able to bring in Hispanic voters also." (From http://www.politico.com/...

Well, I'm here to tell you that I won't, the majority of my friends and family won't, even some white people I talked to won't. It's more than hurt feelings and a short memory. It's about realizing that someone you actually thought was a respectable person has told you that you don't matter on numerous occasions and has sought to belittle their opponent at every turn. You see Mr. Ickes, perhaps you think that the black community is so fickle that we're voting for him because and ONLY because he's black. Well, if that was the case, how did you think we would respond to this white woman attacking this black man?

You see Mr. Ickes, black people are not voting for Obama JUST because he's black in the manner that women are voting for Hillary. Obama had something to prove to the black community. He was up against the black elite (not that people listen to them anyways) and the "first black president" (who I never saw that way) part deux. We've come out in numbers for Obama, and we've come out in numbers AGAINST Hillary. If we can't forget slavery, we can't forget Jim Crow, we can't forget all of the un-institutionalized forms of racism in all the years that have gone by, we're most certainly not going to forget what happened a couple of months ago if your candidate happens to STEAL (and yes it will be theft of monstrous proportions) the nomination from Obama.

You think we're gonna stay home? Oh no Mr. Ickes. Too many black people worked too hard for too long to work to get us the right to vote. We're not staying home. Some of us, are too afraid of "100 Years in Iraq" to pull the lever for McCain so they may write in Obama or vote for Nader. However, I'm one of those latte sipping, educated types who "doesn't really need a president" because I've "been doing fine". Therefore I have no qualms about voting for McCain and know a number of people who will. I prefer him, war and all, to Hillary.

Oh, and Mr. Ickes, I emailed the article to everyone I know so that they too will know how you translated all the way up to Clinton will feel about their vote. The internet is a powerful thing: It captures things you say and do for all eternity! Be mindful of that, and don't lose your candidates anymore votes. I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate that!

Blasphemy! How can I be for McCain? Well bringing this diary full circle, I picked being black over being a woman. McCain (although he be a Republican) is pretty good about AA relations, considering his daughter. While I’m not ready to serve the Clintons up on a racist platter, I will say their behavior in the race area has been a little less than appealing. Eventhough I previously stated that Revs Jackson and Sharpton did not speak for me, an amazing thing happened over the last couple months, they said what I thought! At this point, if Hillary wins it will be a theft and nothing less. I cannot see the fairness in that. I cannot see how I’m supposed to respect or desire the democratic party from that. Therefore, I won’t do it. Even if/when Obama is the nominee, this process has changed the way I feel about the Democratic party. The only way they will ever get a str8 ticket from me (the first time I voted, I voted for the Repub who was against Erskine Bowles) is to have candidates worthy of such a measure, and not simply because they are Democrat.

I know you guys might not like this, but I had to get it off my chest and to deny that my opinion doesn't exist, especially in the black community, would be just plain wrong. I'm not trying to attack Clinton's supporters, some of them are dense (and there are many dense Obama supporters too), but they're still people who want their country to be better. To me, she won't make the country better. That's why voting is an individual right because everyone sees everything differently. Have at it!

Oh yeah sorry for the rambling!