Posts tagged "obama"

The Real First Black President?

Did South Carolina change anything? Is there any logic or sanity to all these primaries? While I have to admit that the whole process seems antiquated and a waste of time, it seems as though something has changed since Obama’s overwhelming victory in the South Carolina primary. Here’s just a couple of the tremors coming from last Saturday.

First there was the speech. I’ve listened to both Obama’s New Hampshire losing candidate speech and the South Carolina winning speech. To say they are inspirational is an under statement. The more he speaks, the more people are drawn to him like a bug incapable of staying away from a warm porch light on a cool fall evening. Something has changed!

Then there was Caroline Kennedy!

Her long and articulate Op-ed in the New York Times was remarkable. I mean, here’s a woman talking about her father, Jack Kennedy, and saying that Obama stirs up reminders of her father: and, that her children are enraptured by Obama as well. Barack Obama can’t buy advertisements like that. Something has changed!

The very next day, word leaks out that Ted Kennedy will endorse Barack-Star today and go on a tour for a couple of days to stand with him. They are going West, where the Latino vote is, where Kennedy has a base, and where Hillary has built what’s now being known as a “Brown Firewall”. Can it be breached? With Ted’s endorsement, surely something has changed!

And we’ll know a lot more come Super Tuesday!

And now there’s Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison who famously declared Bill Clinton to be the nation’s “first black president”. He is endorsing Barack Obama for president today, an Obama campaign source tells ABC News. In an October 1998 essay in The New Yorker, Morrison wrote: “Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president. Blacker than any actual person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime.”

But now- something has changed!

There is truly a black man running for president who is articulate, intelligent, charismatic, and full of charm and hope. And he just may become the second black president- but the first with black skin!

Barack Wins, One Proud Black Man’s Thoughts

Barack wins, the feelings of one black man by George Cook www.letstalkhonestly.com 11/06/08

On Tuesday November 4, 2008 Barack Obama won the presidential election to become the 44th President of the United States. This was a great day for my family. It so moved me that I haven’t been able to sleep for two days and am still trying to come to grips with the Barack Obama victory.

Everything is like a blur and I am just starting to realize on November 6 that we have a black president. Even now in my slightly delirious state I keep waiting for some reporter on Fox News to start screaming about a voter discrepancy somewhere. Most likely Alaska.

I knew I had to write something but I was just too emotional or exhausted. Probably a combination of both. That and a few celebratory Heinekens.

Election Day was very special for me and besides the 3 hour wait to vote ( which will become six hours as I age and tell the story of how I walked in six inches of snow with no shoes to vote for Obama 30 years from now ) it was a beautiful day.

Early on I drove 3 elderly African American women who were all over 75 years old to the polls. They were acting like little school girls giggling and smiling. I almost said, “Don’t make me pull this car over.”

But it hit me that as happy as I was that I could not really appreciate what they felt. At only forty I have not faced real overt racism. But they had, They lived through Jim Crow and segregation. They saw America’s ugly side.

Their joy was really one of “We have overcome” and I knew they really appreciated and understood what was happening in their lifetime.

That made me think of my daughter who will in her lifetime think it’s normal for a black man to be president and hopefully one day will see a woman attain the highest office in the land. Now when I tell my daughter she can be president I wont be talking out one side of my mouth.

All these thoughts brought a few tears to my eyes. That’s a big deal for me since I can only remember crying three times in my adult life. Those three being when my great grandmother died, when my daughter was born, and when the Giants lost the Super Bowl in 2000.

I want to close by returning to those three old women I drove to the polls. Now everyone who has ever been in an old black persons home knows along with plastic covers on the furniture there are pictures of three people you will always see on the wall.

Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy.

Now they can add one more…………..

George L. Cook III www.letstalkhonestly.com

Barack Wins, One Proud Black Man’s Thoughts

Barack wins, the feelings of one black man by George Cook www.letstalkhonestly.com 11/06/08

On Tuesday November 4, 2008 Barack Obama won the presidential election to become the 44th President of the United States. This was a great day for my family. It so moved me that I haven’t been able to sleep for two days and am still trying to come to grips with the Barack Obama victory.

Everything is like a blur and I am just starting to realize on November 6 that we have a black president. Even now in my slightly delirious state I keep waiting for some reporter on Fox News to start screaming about a voter discrepancy somewhere. Most likely Alaska.

I knew I had to write something but I was just too emotional or exhausted. Probably a combination of both. That and a few celebratory Heinekens.

Election Day was very special for me and besides the 3 hour wait to vote ( which will become six hours as I age and tell the story of how I walked in six inches of snow with no shoes to vote for Obama 30 years from now ) it was a beautiful day.

Early on I drove 3 elderly African American women who were all over 75 years old to the polls. They were acting like little school girls giggling and smiling. I almost said, “Don’t make me pull this car over.”

But it hit me that as happy as I was that I could not really appreciate what they felt. At only forty I have not faced real overt racism. But they had, They lived through Jim Crow and segregation. They saw America’s ugly side.

Their joy was really one of “We have overcome” and I knew they really appreciated and understood what was happening in their lifetime.

That made me think of my daughter who will in her lifetime think it’s normal for a black man to be president and hopefully one day will see a woman attain the highest office in the land. Now when I tell my daughter she can be president I wont be talking out one side of my mouth.

All these thoughts brought a few tears to my eyes. That’s a big deal for me since I can only remember crying three times in my adult life. Those three being when my great grandmother died, when my daughter was born, and when the Giants lost the Super Bowl in 2000.

I want to close by returning to those three old women I drove to the polls. Now everyone who has ever been in an old black persons home knows along with plastic covers on the furniture there are pictures of three people you will always see on the wall.

Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy.

Now they can add one more…………..

George L. Cook III www.letstalkhonestly.com

Barack Wins, One Proud Black Man’s Thoughts

Barack wins, the feelings of one black man by George Cook www.letstalkhonestly.com 11/06/08

On Tuesday November 4, 2008 Barack Obama won the presidential election to become the 44th President of the United States. This was a great day for my family. It so moved me that I haven’t been able to sleep for two days and am still trying to come to grips with the Barack Obama victory.

Everything is like a blur and I am just starting to realize on November 6 that we have a black president. Even now in my slightly delirious state I keep waiting for some reporter on Fox News to start screaming about a voter discrepancy somewhere. Most likely Alaska.

I knew I had to write something but I was just too emotional or exhausted. Probably a combination of both. That and a few celebratory Heinekens.

Election Day was very special for me and besides the 3 hour wait to vote ( which will become six hours as I age and tell the story of how I walked in six inches of snow with no shoes to vote for Obama 30 years from now ) it was a beautiful day.

Early on I drove 3 elderly African American women who were all over 75 years old to the polls. They were acting like little school girls giggling and smiling. I almost said, “Don’t make me pull this car over.”

But it hit me that as happy as I was that I could not really appreciate what they felt. At only forty I have not faced real overt racism. But they had, They lived through Jim Crow and segregation. They saw America’s ugly side.

Their joy was really one of “We have overcome” and I knew they really appreciated and understood what was happening in their lifetime.

That made me think of my daughter who will in her lifetime think it’s normal for a black man to be president and hopefully one day will see a woman attain the highest office in the land. Now when I tell my daughter she can be president I wont be talking out one side of my mouth.

All these thoughts brought a few tears to my eyes. That’s a big deal for me since I can only remember crying three times in my adult life. Those three being when my great grandmother died, when my daughter was born, and when the Giants lost the Super Bowl in 2000.

I want to close by returning to those three old women I drove to the polls. Now everyone who has ever been in an old black persons home knows along with plastic covers on the furniture there are pictures of three people you will always see on the wall.

Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy.

Now they can add one more…………..

George L. Cook III www.letstalkhonestly.com

Fear of a Powerful Black Man with a Golden Pen

According to Time Magazine of June 22, 2009; the United States of America spends $903 Billion dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. I am yet to see a parade of patriots who wants to keep their country from being grab by a black man march through the streets in protest of these unprecedented spending on an “unjust war” which has claimed over 4,000 American lives and tens of thousands of Iraq’s lives since its inception. These same patriots protected Bush and its cronies during 8 years of living in hell under democracy. Not a word! Not a complain! Now, the man in charge is taking their country and ruining it. They suddenly woke up and wants’ it back. WOW!!!!!!!!

We all know how much the health care for every citizen would cost. What if it even costs more? United States annual war economy – $607 Billion. China, France, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Saudi Arabia and India combined – $476.4 Billion dollars. These 9 nations includes the other world’s superpower – both financially and military. All nations war budget is less than 50% of the United States total. Where are the patriots? Please line up and protest that.

Bush and Cheney spent more than this current President would spend if he were to be re-elected for a second time – “IF”. Though, at the end of his term, we would have something to show for his spending. What do we have for 8 years of Bush and Cheney? Terror, Lies, Hypocrisy, Corruption, Nepotism. To be bold – Theft of public funds. Not to mention the ill-will towards all of our friends and further annihilation of our enemies which prevent reasonable resolution of conflicts which opens up more conflicts and so on and so forth. Where are the patriots? At your mark, get set, Go! Protest that!

In these days of anomie, right is wrong and black is white. No matter what the President does, it’s always wrong. Why? A black man duly elected by the sane Majority of the citizens of the United States. The people who voted for Mr. Obama couldn’t all be wrong. Could they? Well, live it to the patriots. They are all wrong. Perhaps he stole the election ala Florida. Perhaps, the Supreme Court appointed him President.

These so called patriots hated this president so much, they carried guns to his rallies where he talks about the future while they shouted and stayed in the past. They carried signs the entire world rejected as a symbol of hate and there is no leadership to guide them. The good book says it all – When there is no vision, the people perished! Without changing cause, all those who sees evil and failed to address it would all be culpable in case of a national tragedy. All without an exemption.

  Now the President of the United States cannot even address young students without injecting selfish politics into it? Mind you, he has 2 children of his own. The same two children that one so called minister who sins from the pulpit is actively calling for to die and that the First Lady of the United States of America should become a widow. This is un-American, it’s evil, it’s bigotry at the highest level, it’s beyond hatred and it’s simply – RACISM. 

What type of God does this person serves? What is the end result? Does the end justify the means? I do not think so. Finally, I will accept all of the premises laid for hating this president if the haters can come out and say the real true reason why they hated him so much - He is Black. Say it and get it over with. Clear your conscience and set your soul free. Until then – It is what it is! 

Is God Black? Hollywood’s Answer and Faint Echoes of Charlton Heston

 I must admit, it is not my article I wish you to read, but it does resonate  my sentiments; a faint echo of something I wrote in the past which  is why I love this article.  I grew up with the Charlton Heston voice booming down the laws of Judeo-Christianity in such epics as Ben Hur, Moses and so on.  That was when my spiritual childhood found more Christian education in TV as a child than it ever did in catechism, which was obligatory for us good young Catholics back in the mid 60′s.  Actually it was quite a welcome break from regular public school because we were allowed to leave early every Wednesday.  God permitted us to play hooky.

 Jeez, were we ever frightened by those dressed up foreign looking Nuns, the persona incarnate of Charlton Heston for one day a week.   The ‘stick’ was still allowed, a waning threat at the time of civil rights and individual expression, but still visibly hanging somewhere on a rusty nail in the classroom where all could see.  But we craved to understand, to be holy, to go to heaven and, above all, to be scared of any thought that was a sin. This was the ever present sin that Charlton Heston talked about while breaking the commandments in two, we cowered in fright as children, afraid to see what God would do next.  We were kids, we still believed

And we moved through the 60′s and 70′s, civil disobedience was rampant, we didn’t understand it as young whites, but our parents told us to lock the doors and close the windows when going through ‘downtown”.  School was disrupted and the word ‘riot’ became part of our new vocabulary.  Our parents, trying  desperately to adjust to this changing situation when ‘colored’ was still the appropriate word to call African Americans, simply did not know what to tell us. We grew, we learned, and as Americans we continue to learn, grow and accept changes as they appear.   Now we have succumbed to the truth. Hollywood, the reflection of all that is true in society has shown us the change, good bye Charlton, the heavenly soul train has arrived.  God is black and we have now come to realize it with the arrival of the archangel Obama.

So with no further ado, I would love for you to read this humorous article, written by Micheal Kinsley, a writer with Time Magazine, someone who agrees that Morgan Freeman is one of the best people to tell you a bed time story.  I actually voted for Garrison Keiller as forerunner, but it was still in the bedtime story category.  I would never aspire to equate the voice of god with someone living…mind you, those nuns beat that into me and I don’t want to end up in hell. (then I would have that ex-girlfriend screaming in my ear for eternity).

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1871919,00.html

Quiero mas, mucho mucho mas.    Make sure to visit my sites

http://www.newayswealth.com    http://www.ineways.com/bonheur

Is God Black? Hollywood’s Answer and Faint Echoes of Charlton Heston

 I must admit, it is not my article I wish you to read, but it does resonate  my sentiments; a faint echo of something I wrote in the past which  is why I love this article.  I grew up with the Charlton Heston voice booming down the laws of Judeo-Christianity in such epics as Ben Hur, Moses and so on.  That was when my spiritual childhood found more Christian education in TV as a child than it ever did in catechism, which was obligatory for us good young Catholics back in the mid 60′s.  Actually it was quite a welcome break from regular public school because we were allowed to leave early every Wednesday.  God permitted us to play hooky.

 Jeez, were we ever frightened by those dressed up foreign looking Nuns, the persona incarnate of Charlton Heston for one day a week.   The ‘stick’ was still allowed, a waning threat at the time of civil rights and individual expression, but still visibly hanging somewhere on a rusty nail in the classroom where all could see.  But we craved to understand, to be holy, to go to heaven and, above all, to be scared of any thought that was a sin. This was the ever present sin that Charlton Heston talked about while breaking the commandments in two, we cowered in fright as children, afraid to see what God would do next.  We were kids, we still believed

And we moved through the 60′s and 70′s, civil disobedience was rampant, we didn’t understand it as young whites, but our parents told us to lock the doors and close the windows when going through ‘downtown”.  School was disrupted and the word ‘riot’ became part of our new vocabulary.  Our parents, trying  desperately to adjust to this changing situation when ‘colored’ was still the appropriate word to call African Americans, simply did not know what to tell us. We grew, we learned, and as Americans we continue to learn, grow and accept changes as they appear.   Now we have succumbed to the truth. Hollywood, the reflection of all that is true in society has shown us the change, good bye Charlton, the heavenly soul train has arrived.  God is black and we have now come to realize it with the arrival of the archangel Obama.

So with no further ado, I would love for you to read this humorous article, written by Micheal Kinsley, a writer with Time Magazine, someone who agrees that Morgan Freeman is one of the best people to tell you a bed time story.  I actually voted for Garrison Keiller as forerunner, but it was still in the bedtime story category.  I would never aspire to equate the voice of god with someone living…mind you, those nuns beat that into me and I don’t want to end up in hell. (then I would have that ex-girlfriend screaming in my ear for eternity).

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1871919,00.html

Quiero mas, mucho mucho mas.    Make sure to visit my sites

http://www.newayswealth.com    http://www.ineways.com/bonheur

Is God Black? Hollywood’s Answer and Faint Echoes of Charlton Heston

 I must admit, it is not my article I wish you to read, but it does resonate  my sentiments; a faint echo of something I wrote in the past which  is why I love this article.  I grew up with the Charlton Heston voice booming down the laws of Judeo-Christianity in such epics as Ben Hur, Moses and so on.  That was when my spiritual childhood found more Christian education in TV as a child than it ever did in catechism, which was obligatory for us good young Catholics back in the mid 60′s.  Actually it was quite a welcome break from regular public school because we were allowed to leave early every Wednesday.  God permitted us to play hooky.

 Jeez, were we ever frightened by those dressed up foreign looking Nuns, the persona incarnate of Charlton Heston for one day a week.   The ‘stick’ was still allowed, a waning threat at the time of civil rights and individual expression, but still visibly hanging somewhere on a rusty nail in the classroom where all could see.  But we craved to understand, to be holy, to go to heaven and, above all, to be scared of any thought that was a sin. This was the ever present sin that Charlton Heston talked about while breaking the commandments in two, we cowered in fright as children, afraid to see what God would do next.  We were kids, we still believed

And we moved through the 60′s and 70′s, civil disobedience was rampant, we didn’t understand it as young whites, but our parents told us to lock the doors and close the windows when going through ‘downtown”.  School was disrupted and the word ‘riot’ became part of our new vocabulary.  Our parents, trying  desperately to adjust to this changing situation when ‘colored’ was still the appropriate word to call African Americans, simply did not know what to tell us. We grew, we learned, and as Americans we continue to learn, grow and accept changes as they appear.   Now we have succumbed to the truth. Hollywood, the reflection of all that is true in society has shown us the change, good bye Charlton, the heavenly soul train has arrived.  God is black and we have now come to realize it with the arrival of the archangel Obama.

So with no further ado, I would love for you to read this humorous article, written by Micheal Kinsley, a writer with Time Magazine, someone who agrees that Morgan Freeman is one of the best people to tell you a bed time story.  I actually voted for Garrison Keiller as forerunner, but it was still in the bedtime story category.  I would never aspire to equate the voice of god with someone living…mind you, those nuns beat that into me and I don’t want to end up in hell. (then I would have that ex-girlfriend screaming in my ear for eternity).

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1871919,00.html

Quiero mas, mucho mucho mas.    Make sure to visit my sites

http://www.newayswealth.com    http://www.ineways.com/bonheur

President Obama, a Christian formed in the American Black church

Considered a man of faith, Barack Obama, the American President of the United States, is formed as a Christian. The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, pastor Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), Chicago, where the Obama’s worshiped for 20 years in Illinois is his Obama’s former minister. What kind of Christian was the Church? The church website proclaims: “We are a congregation which is unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian…”

Trinity United Church of Christ occupies a tan brick building on West 95th Street across railroad tracks from a public housing project, reports The Christian Science Monitor.

The President said about leaving, “Too much press harassment, people couldn’t’ worship in peace.” That wasn’t his reason for leaving, but a complaint on the news media attention. The reasons were politically controversial remarks by Trinity’s pastor, Reverend Wright.

Wright’s comments contradicted one of Obama’s central messages — that the candidate can transcend past divisions such as those involving race.

Regarding the Church, on Bill Moyers Journal, Wright says we are unashamedly Black. His philosophy embodies, “Use the culture of which we are a part.” He preaches there is hope, that life has meaning, and that God is still in control. “We can change. We can do better.” Black Liberation theology is Wright’s United Church of Christ (UCC) message. It is a UCC message he offers, since he is a UCC minister who studied under Martin Marty. Martin E. Marty, distinguished Lutheran Pastor, teacher, and writer who has been on the University of Chicago faculty since 1963.

Grounded in the history of the African-American, Black theology is powerful stuff. He is little sorry about his comments, but in Bill Moyer’s interview, Reverend Wright does appear sorry he made the comment “God damn America” in the Pulpit-if only for a few moments. But it wasn’t one remark, but a string of them that caused the significant distancing between the candidate’s spiritual advisor and then candidate.

The press in the United States spent a lot of time and space talking about President Obama’s faith during the campaign, his church, and how he is a Christian-the President said he is Christian himself, and that is also news. Religion makes news, despite separation of Church and State. Time magazine says more voters saw President Obama as a strongly religious person than they did every major presidential hopeful during the campaign but Mitt Romney, the Republican former governor of Massachusetts. Romney’s Mormonism drew extensive news coverage.

President Obama was married in Trinity church. His children were baptized in the church, and also like his wedding, Reverend Wright performed the solemnizations. The President said on leaving the church, “Trinity was where I found Jesus Christ, where we were married, where our children were baptized. We have many friends among the 8,000 members…” It is a church where he was moved many times. When Wright preached one Sunday about the sustaining power of hope in the face of poverty and despair, Obama says he found himself in tears.

He said in one speech during the Presidential campaign:

* “For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change… Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope.”

It is the claim of Reverend Jeremiah Wright that Trinity is a church of Black theology. The Reverend Doctor John Cone, the Harvard Professor and African-American theologian interviewed on American Public Broadcasting System (PBS) by commentator Bill Moyers says on the PBS website:

* “As we examine what contemporary theologians are saying, we find that they are silent about the enslaved condition of black people. Evidently they see no relationship between black slavery and the Christian gospel. Consequently there has been no sharp confrontation of the gospel with white racism. There is, then, a desperate need for a black theology, a theology whose sole purpose is to apply the freeing power of the gospel to black people under white oppression.”

Cone says:

* The Cross is the same as the lynching tree for the Black American in a Harvard Speech. The Christian Reverend Cone wants to start a conversation on this subject. He offers that lynching was terrorism that “worked to a certain degree.” This includes spectacle lynchings where 5,000 would gather to watch.

Reverend Cone is ordained in the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. which is one of the city’s largest black churches and not far from Obama’s home in the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park.

Apparently the President did not turning his back on Black theology yet, per se, since he spoke from the pulpit at that same mega-church in Chicago, which has 20,000 members and is also considered a Black American church. This in 2008.

It is the history of the African American church in the United States that it is a center of Black community life speaking to the needs of the church and larger community in social and political ways. But not in so partisan a manner as was recently ascribed to the theology and preaching of the Reverend Wright. So the perception became. But he still associates himself with the African American church in general.

President Obama spoke of the role of Black fathers and their responsibilities, perhaps more a campaign speech than sermon from a “religious” man whose campaign motto is “Change That Works for You.” Will he again become a member of a Black Church while serving in Washington, D.C. Time will tell. Nonetheless, there his Christian roots lie.

It is from the Black Church that President Obama learned many things about hope. Can he really take himself out of the African-American church ethos, as he has known it? Perhaps the Reverend Wright thinks not, though he is not saying. His official press release remark on then President Obama and his family’s leaving was, “…We are saddened by the news …”