Saturday, November 8, 2008

Political Dogma

"If President Kennedy would just go on television, and say, "I would like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet," and if he'd just say "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger" to every nigger he saw, "boogie boogie boogie boogie boogie," "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger" 'til nigger didn't mean anything anymore, then you could never make some six-year-old black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger at school."
- Lenny Bruce
Lenny was being a bit outrageous, as he had a penchant for, but his idea is interesting. Perhaps Barack Obama was taking a page from Lenny's book when he held his first post-election press conference:
Obama made a remark as he revealed his thinking in what is becoming one of the highest-profile issues of this transition period: What kind of puppy will he and his wife, Michelle, get for their daughters as they move into the White House.
Because Malia, 10, has allergies, the family wants a low-allergy dog. But Obama said they also want to adopt a puppy from an animal shelter, which could make it harder to find a breed that wouldn't aggravate his daughter's problem.
"Obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me," Obama said with a smile. "So whether we're going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household."
Of course, Obama's mother was white and his father black, so the "mutt" remark drew a lot of attention and should no doubt bring a lot more. As for me, I am greatly looking forward to the next 4 years. I think I'm going to like Barack even more than I do already.
Of course, we're all mutts anyway, regardless of our race or what we believe is our heritage. If you trace us back long enough none of us are pure anything, really. So, take that all you [Ethnic] Americans who celebrate your made-up holidays and parade around like you're something special. You're not.
The latest government projections say that by 2042 less than half of America's population will be white, so there stands to be a lot more mutts running around. I suppose, if we're alive as a race of people long enough that we'll all be one homogeneous mass.
We'll just be ... people.
Won't that be nice?

3 comments:

kimmyk said...

First, lovin' the new look around here. I like the green with the white and the black. Very cool.

Next, I heard the remark he made and never gave it a second thought thinking the same as you-we're all a mixture of something or another.

I imagine there will be people whose job it is to pick apart EVERY word the man says to totally misconstrue and spin it and twist it....well you get my point.

i too am excited for the next 4 and hopefully 8 years.

good things to come no doubt.

kimmyk said...

P.S.
Your sunset is pretty in NJ. Who knew.

Kate Michele said...

i saw that press conference while eating lunch yesterday. and i gotta say, one of the best "president" press conferences i ever saw.

xoxox