Category Archives: Current Events

Barack Obama. Commander-in-Chief of the United States Military. President of the United States of America. If anything, the political landscape of the current election has made him look like a true moderate. My mother is a huge Obama supporter. I am a mostly reluctant Obama supporter. This hasn’t exactly caused tension in our relationship, but it definitely has caused us to have different opinions on all those random “Thank God We Have Obama” t-shirts and memes I see around. My mom has been trying to get me to read The Audacity of Hope for a couple of years now, and I finally gave in to her wishes.

I was not disappointed. I went into The Audacity of Hope thinking that I wouldn’t like it at all. I really thought that the book was going to be a written version of his presidential campaign, and I wasn’t super interested in that. (Don’t get me wrong, Obama does do some politicking in this book.) However, The Audacity of Hope is a delightful and frank look at some of the partisanship that is occurring within our political framework. I found reading this book especially timely considering the political primaries that are occurring and how a divide is occurring, not just between Republicans and Democrats, but also within the respective parities.

Since this book is old hat, I’m just going to leave you with some insights that I found refreshing as a former student of political science. (And since I know I have quite a few non-American followers, please ask me any questions if something I write doesn’t make sense!)

1.) I appreciate that Obama went back to discuss the formation of the parties by the founding fathers. 

Sometimes I forget that politicians are actually intelligent interpreters of the law. As a political science major, perhaps that is embarrassing to admit. But I also watch the news where non-facts are often spun to narrate a story that usually has little to do with a person’s ability or education. I find myself making arguments for candidates and against other candidates with these non-facts rather than talking about their intellect or training that may have prepared them to do a job. These are the real things we should be talking about when we discuss candidates.

2.) Obama covers religion and how Republicans aren’t necessarily misusing it for political gains (as many Democrats try to spin it). 

Religion is something that is seldom truly discussed in politics. I think that because it is a sensitive topic, people shy away. At least that’s what I’ve found when I’m around my more liberal friends. Obama brings up an excellent point when he wrote about the Democratic party base shying away from religion and religious discourse because it “conflicts” with its base ideals. Despite the majority of the electorate being religious, including the majority of Democrats. I appreciate how Obama said that “morality” is important to both sides, but it’s important to understand how they manifest differently through the platforms.

3.) I appreciated that Obama talked about some egotism being involved in running for elected office.

Egotistical. This is a word that has been used to describe Donald Trump a lot this year. Obama admits that to run for office, specially national office, it does take a bit of egotism on the candidate’s part. You have to believe that you are truly what is best for the people, and that the other person is not better than you. I appreciated how real that statement was, and also how it should re-frame how we use that word when speaking about political candidates.

Until Next Time World…

Pretty recently I “rediscovered” Lupe Fiasco. By rediscovered, I mean he came up on shuffle while I was listening to my iPod. He’s a rapper that is pretty well known for the political undertones in his lyrics. The title of this post comes from his song “All Black Everything” which is a narrative about what the US might look like if slavery had never existed. As a black woman, I cannot remove my race from the experiences that I have in life; so I think that the song is pretty fun to think about. Unfortunately, racism has a lot of context in our world today, unlike the imaginary world Lupe Fiasco creates in his song.

I should preference by this post by saying that I am not the most well read on black politics or black thought in general. There are some great bloggers out there that devote all of their time to issues of racism and race relations in the US. (I will also create a page on this blog that links to some of these bloggers.) However, I think that talking about racism and thinking about racism are valuable uses of one’s times. I recently read (and tweeted about) Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book Between the World and Me. It’s critically acclaimed and has been a hot topic in both my worlds – higher education and the book community.

Continue reading “Racism has no context.”

Yesterday, the US wept for the citizens of San Bernardino where a mass shooting has left at least 14 dead and incited another heated debate among citizens and politicians alike. Many people completely missed the shooting that occurred in Savannah, Georgia (my home state) leaving one dead and three others injured. Looking across my social media platforms, I see a Washington Post article that talks about how the number of mass shooters has surpassed the number of days. In what is seemingly an age of fear, complete with bulletproof blankets for your elementary school children, there have been two responses to the endemic in the US.

#1: Prayer: The favored approach by many on the right, and almost all of our politicians. We are often told that the families of the victims are in “our thoughts and prayers.” Not to sound insensitive, but it would be ludicrous to think that I have enough time to name all the victims of these attacks, let alone to say individual prayers for them AND their families. Unless it’s something general like, “Dear Deity, please pray for all those who were murdered at some point between January 1, 2015 and right this second.” That being said, prayer is something that is very important to me, and I really appreciate the sentiment behind it. But is that really the best we can do?

#2: Apathy: Unfortunately, I often find myself falling into these category, as I imagine many US citizens do. We read the news, shocked and appalled. Then we watch the response of our political and community leaders (i.e. prayer), shake our heads and go about our lives. Maybe if we’re really feeling inspired or impacted we might donate some money or post an angry article on our social media accounts. This is clearly not the answer.

Okay, so if these two things are good enough, well then what is? Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer to that. However, I do think understanding how individuals can come to do things like this might be a good place to start. I recently read a book, Hate List by Jennifer Brown, that follows the life of a teenage girl in the aftermath of a shooter at her high school committed by her boyfriend. While this is a book that hits a little close to the events of (what seems like) every day life, I believe that Brown’s work allows the reader to ask different types of questions in the wake of tragedy. Continue reading “Another Day, Another Mass Shooting”