“The only difference between African slaves and European or British slaves was that the latter could run away and melt into the population. But if you were black, you were noticeable.”

~Toni Morrison

i have always wondered what it was like to be white.

i have always wondered what it's like to navigate a world that is not suspicious of your presence, to be able to blend seamlessly into the background without much notice. i wonder what it's like to not represent everyone that looks like you. i know, white people have their own issues & crosses to bear, but growing up as a Black girl in America, i was keenly aware that no matter where i went, or how i behaved...eyes were always watching and judging.

early on, my parents--slightly militant--told me i always had to be on my A-game. they instilled in me an intense determination to achieve, not only for myself, but for each member of my family (and race) who did not have the opportunity to "make it." if i didn't make a good grade in school, my grandmother would tell me about the trouble she had attending school in rural Arkansas. she would say how she had to wake up early to work the cotton field, go to school, and come home to continue working the fields, all while she and her family faced racist Jim Crow laws. she would recount having to attend segregated schools in subpar environments, all to illustrate her point that i had it so much better and had no reason at all NOT to achieve.

i have always carried this idea in my head, that black people must be better than. while i know that i am not able to represent all black people, i do know that for some, i am the only (positive) representative that they see.

i was listening to NPR the other day and Toni Morrison was discussing her new book, A Mercy. her book deals with issues of slavery, but without the slaves being "raced," meaning, she is taking a look at slavery across racial lines, before any sort of racial implications were used to delineate types of servants. as i tried to wrap my mind around the idea of being "raced," or rather NOT being raced, i listened to This American Life as they traveled through Pennsylvania with both presidential campaigns. unsurprisingly, Obama volunteers were finding some resistance to Obama, not on issues of the economy or the war, but solely on the issue of race. in September, The Wall Street Journal reported

Barack Obama’s race could be the deciding factor if the presidential battle remains a dead heat on Election Day, according to an Associated Press poll released today in conjunction with Stanford University. The survey finds that many white Americans — particularly Democrats and Independent voters — still hold deep-seated reservations about African Americans.

The survey of 2,227 adults has a 2% margin of error and showed one-third of white Democrats hold negative views of blacks.

as i listened to both broadcasts, read countless articles, and overdosed on political news, i started to think about ways in which race is applied and used as a tool suppress achievement.

there is no secret that this country was founded on the basis of systematic white supremacy, which coldly annihilated the indigenous population and treated Africans as chattel. instead of bestowing the right of citizenship to enslaved Africans, our forefathers thought up the three-fifths compromise, which essentially resolved that African-Americans were less than human. despite great gains in civil rights and racial equality, this institutional supremacy has continued to permeate all aspects of our society. the inequality found in our schools, our communities, and our legal system are just reminders that the playing field is not level.

as we sit on the cusp of possibly electing an African-American president, i am both hopeful and suspicious of what this will mean for our nation. will we use this momentous act as catalyst to once and for all deal with the racist systems still in place in our country? or we will act as if all has been healed, and that the election of Obama will represent reparations for all that has been done to America's blacks?

as Cornel West once stated, "A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue." despite all of our imperfections, i am still hopeful that we can/will continue this honest dialogue and move past the issues that continue to impede our progress.

the stock market is going crazy. today, the same day the market experienced record highs last year, it plunged 678 points, marking its lowest rate in more than 5 years. people are scared, worried about their homes and their pensions, and the future of our ability to exist. for the first time i am worried about my own 403B, and how my district is investing the little bit of money i have saved over the past few years. my state is on the verge of locking up. we need $7 billion from government just to make payroll, and businesses everywhere are having a tough time raising the funds to keep going. but with all of this uncertainty about our economy—our future—the McCain campaign is trying to distract us with personal attacks.

i am not going to rehash them. you've heard them all. invoking "questionable" relationships with “terrorists”, or invoking Senator Obama's "foreign" name, or implying he is a Manchurian candidate. it's all a distraction, and what really matters gets lost in the noise.

what matters to me is if i'll be able to buy a home at a reasonable interest rate when i'm ready. what matters to me is that my grandmother’s home of 40+ years, which she refinanced a few years ago, doesn't put her upside down on her mortgage and force her out on the street. i am worried i won't be able to afford college for my son, that my district, my employer, will not be able to sustain our workforce & start cutting from the bottom (*ehem*, new teachers like me), and that our whole system will plunge into total disarray.

these are scary times, in which many people are offering few concrete solutions. the last thing we need is scare tactics and innuendo from political candidates. we need clear-cut solutions and a vision to get us out of this mess.

if you could speak to both Obama & McCain, what would you tell them? what advice would you give them to get us out of this mess? What are your worries and fears?

I’m sorry, I thought it was 2008.

On the heels of the New Yorker Cover debacle, we have video of John McLaughlin defending Jesse Jackson’s recent “slip up” by calling Obama an “oreo.” I haven’t heard this term in a very long time, and am surprised that McLaughlin was even able to pull it out of the hat. As if we (Black folks) didn’t have enough to deal with already (education, prison rates, the economy), we are thrown back into the debate of who is and who is not “Black.”

It is extremely problematic to label someone who is intelligent, articulate and a genius “white on the inside,” because it completely devalues the genius of Black people. The idea that those of us who have pursued higher education, can navigate Standard American English, and who don’t fit neatly into to stereotypical archetypes are somehow not really Black is absurd and has damaging consequences.

A recent study found that “acting black” affects the number of black students in gifted programs.

Most of the students were familiar with the terms "acting white" and "acting black." They described "acting white" as speaking properly, being smart or too smart, doing well in school, taking advanced courses, being stuck up, and not acting your race. Terms they used to describe "acting black" were having a "don't care" attitude, being laid back, being dumb or uneducated and pretending not to be smart.

"Tragically, only one student (surveyed) indicated acting black was positive. Instead, the gifted black students… believe that acting black means lacking in intelligence, placing a low priority on academics, speaking poorly, behaving poorly, and dressing in ill-fitting clothes," they wrote. "The gifted black students clearly hold negative stereotypes about blacks, namely their attitudes, behaviors and intelligence."

Sixty-six percent of the students surveyed reported knowing someone who had been teased or ridiculed for doing well in school, while 42 percent reported being teased for this reason themselves.

The authors found discrepancies between students' attitudes and their behaviors—students expressed belief that school is important and a key to success, but may not behave that way in the classroom (entire article).

Growing up, I distinctly remember kids around the way saying I talked white or that I was stuck up because I attended a private school and brought home good grades. I was embarrassed that my parents, especially my father, would brag about my academic achievements to others. Growing up, I didn’t feel better than anyone else, I felt like me. I quickly learned that being smart wasn’t tantamount to being cool, and had it not been for the guidance of my parents, I may have not worked as hard, just so I’d fit in. Today, I see many of my students’ struggle with the same issues. The smart ones are sometimes ashamed of their educational prowess because it ostracizes them from their peers, and the ones that need a little more help are slow to access it because they don’t want to seem nerdy or white. It’s frustrating but comments like McLaughlin’s only steep the fire.

I am troubled by the perception that being Black means being aloof, uneducated, and lazy. Our history speaks otherwise. We come from a long line of revolutionaries, people who worked hard in spite of all they faced, and pure geniuses (Baldwin? DuBois? Brotha Malcolm?). It is painful to know that our children think that, by virtue of their racial make-up, they are inferior and must somehow continue to perpetuate stereotypes to be accepted by their peers.

Although I was not completely enamored with Obama at the outset of the campaign, I am ecstatic that he serves as yet another reminder of the genius of Black people. When I am in my classroom, I can point to him and say, see, that is what acting black, or being yourself, will get you: success.

The latest issue of The New Yorker depicts Barak Obama as a turban-wearing Muslim, Michelle Obama as a gun-toting, crazed Negro woman, and Osama bin Laden ensconced in a portrait in the Oval Office, all while the American flag roasts on a fire. According to the New Yorker, the cover, entitled, "The Politics of Fear," is meant as a satirical response to Sen. Obama's right-wing critics.

But did they go too far?

Now, I understand satire, it is meant to be so over the top that people will immediately see the truth. The problem, however, is that there are still large segments of the population that truly believe that Sen. Obama is an unpatriotic Muslim looking to infiltrate the white house. Crazy, right? But some people fall victim to this type of propaganda and fail to research the issues on their own. A recent Newsweek Poll found that...

...white voters continue to be a challenge for Obama, with McCain leading the Democrat in that category 48 to 36 percent. Some of Obama's lag in white support may be explained by continual confusion over his religious identity. Twelve percent of voters surveyed said that Obama was sworn in as a United States senator on a Qur'an, while 26 percent believe the Democratic candidate was raised as a Muslim and 39 percent believe he attended an Islamic school as a child growing up in Indonesia. None of these things is true. Finally cracking the code with less-educated whites could have a big payoff for Obama: 85 percent of undecided voters are non-Hispanic whites and only 22 percent of those undecideds have a four-year college degree.

This is precisely what disturbs me about The New Yorker cover. I can appreciate its wit and its purpose as a satirical commentary on the absurdity of extremist politics, however, as my cinema professor's once said, once you release your art to the world, your intention no longer counts. The perception of the viewer is all that will matter in the end. And here in lies the problem. We know the nature of people, they view images and create their own stories in place of the real thing. So to have such a depiction on the cover of such a venerable publication is, at the very least, problematic for Obama and his campaign, considering people actually think this is the real him.

But what do you think? Do you find the image offensive? What kind of an effect (if any) do you think it'll have on the campaign?