The marauding ships
sailed the high oceans from Europe and the Americas,
descending upon Africa in search of laborers
for the cotton fields of the New World. Caucasian
mercenaries conspired with Negro despots, warlords, and rogue leaders in the
jungles of the motherland, to seize and send off the children of Africa into servitude to men of evil intent. Young men
and women, the strongest, healthiest, and most brilliant were thrown down deep
inside the hulls of rugged ships, shackled, naked, and deprived of any human
dignity under the whipping of the invaders. On the shores of Europe
and the Americas,
the slaves were lined up like cows in open markets to be sold at the desire of
their traders and into the hands of the slave holders who pillaged the strength
of those unfortunate souls and or raped them until they dropped out their last breaths.
Mother Africa wailed and
whined.
Then, a young man with the darkest complexion traveled from
the heart of Africa, and all the way into the new
world of the Americas.
He initially settled in Hawaii,
an America
away from America, but still the United Stated of America. He came in and
conspired. He learned the American way by penetrating their high institutions;
he made a pact with the white people by unifying with their daughters; and, he
became one with them by leaving behind his seed that would germinate and climb
up the echelon of the marginalized world, to lift up Africa
from down under and place her atop of society. He is Barack Hussein Obama.
The majority of Americans would not have consciously agreed
that this country was ready for the leadership of an African American. The
world in general would not have conceived that society would have this day
conceded its reign to a Negro. When Barack Hussein Obama first appeared as a
candidate for the presidency of the United States with the other Democrats in
the primaries, he could not have been considered more than another simple Democrat
– probably of a lesser quality for having been “black”. His resilience proved
that he was a tough contender, however, when he was left alone to do battle
with Hillary Clinton in a contest that at times turned to be fairly nasty. Many
people still could not believe that he would be president. Yet, even that early
some people predicted him to defeat Mrs. Clinton because of his calmness versus
the Clintons’
agitating nature. This victory turned out to be the first major slap to the
face of the status-quo. Most had likely imagined that the country would prefer
a white woman over a black man.
One had to have difficulty in foreseeing though that Obama
was going to easily break into the Republican line like a football player
scoring a touchdown to win over McCain. Hillary expressed the uncertainty when
she protested that her opponent was not a formidable enough candidate to face
the Republican. McCain himself exemplified such a sentiment in his melancholic campaign.
It was like a Goliath and David affair. Even
when the young Obama was consistently showing to be advancing in all the polls,
it was still inconceivable for many that he would be able to travel the full
course and pierce the ceiling of racism. Some observers cited what they termed
the “Bradley effect”, in which they expected the white person to show support
for the black man in public, but to cast the ballot for the white candidate
behind the curtain. However, some people did say, “You cannot stop history.”
Whatever they meant by that could be lost in its own meaning
to the sophisticated mind. Yet, for the believers, it made a lot of sense, as
they would mock the skeptics after the victory with, “I told you so!”
Negroes have come a long way. From the jungle of Africa, (fighting lions and chasing wild goats as illustrated
in Eddy Murphy’s movie “Coming to America”), to the top universities and
institutions of the civilized world, it has certainly been a long and
unpredictable journey. To be seized, tied up, jailed, and be thrown shackled
inside the hull of an old nasty and dirty ship, where one lies in his or her vomit,
urine, and feces for many days, weeks, or even months; and, in heat, cold and
rain where a great majority would not survive the trip; it was surely a damned
and tragic journey.
Slave traders and masters could not have foreseen what would
become of the sons and daughters of Africa. Or, it could be most fairly said
that nature has its own way. The human beings have been fighting ardently to
shape the course of life, sometimes for the better and other times for the
worst. There are good men and evil ones. Some people work for the common good;
others promote self interest. Yet, some things in life remain absolute. The sun
would rise; the night would fall; the rain would come; and; the human being and
life would endure. The man would be elevated; he would be degraded; but, he
would remain “the man”, the master of his environment. Whether it is a black
man, a white man, a red man, or a yellow man, the basic principle for the man
remains constant: to better himself.
With Barack Hussein Obama, history has come full circle. Today,
the European, the African, the Asian, and the Native American are drawing
nearer together in their conquest of the wild nature. For a long time the Diaspora
children of Africa have been fighting their
aggressors all over the world for justice, freedom, and equality. They resisted
their capturers in Africa; they revolted on
the ships crossing the Atlantic; they marooned
off the fields in the Americas;
and, they have constantly continued to battle their way into mainstream society.
And, certainly the oppressors have never ceased to feel the brunt of the
Negroes’ anger. It is said that some slave ships were lost at sea due to slave
mutinies; slave owners were sometimes assassinated or poisoned in the plantations;
and there were continual revolts, such that epitomized in the well publicized
Haitian revolt led by the celebrated Toussaint Louverture that resulted into
the independence of Haiti from France in 1804 to form the first black nation of
the New World.
Likewise, the Negro Americans have never relented in their
resistance to oppression; which led to Abraham Lincoln’s liberation of the slaves
at the end of the Civil War. And, in the nineteen sixties after furious
protests that markedly grew from the refusal of an old tired Rosa Parks to
vacate her seat in the bus to white people, and after a formidable leadership
performance put forward by the charismatic Reverend Martin Luther King and
others, the United States outlawed outright institutionalized oppression. This
offered basic rights to the African Americans to function in the country on
equal footing with their follow Caucasians countrymen. Now, even though
discrimination has persisted, and segregation in the private sectors has remained
preeminent, the little tired and frail old woman does no longer have to stand
up and to give up her seat to a young strong healthy white man. And, it is no
longer standard for the virile young black man to be lynched for simply his
natural desire of frolicking with a white female.
Eventually layers and layers of wall would continue to
crumble in the path of the children of Africa.
From no seat in the bus, to a back seat, and then to a front seat, progress has
been made. Of course the society has remained fairly divisive. Equal rights have
never really meant equal opportunity for all. A great majority of Whites has remained
strongly united against the advent of the Blacks on their system. Yet, with no
legal and or institutionalized barriers in the paths of the Negroes, they have persisted,
taking advantage of every minor opportunity to go up the echelon of a marginalized
society. It takes much effort, (schooling, working hard, staying out of trouble),
just like the white man does; and, the black man turns out to be no less than
his white counterpart- if only in the rational mind. Many great and fabulous
players have sprung forth in the Afro American arena. From Sojourner Truth of
the Underground Railway, to Martin Luther king, to Barak Obama, it has been
fantastic what the black mind could accomplish.
Why Barack Obama?
In our days, we have witnessed many formidable African
Americans aspired to become the president of the United States. Most notably,
there were Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton, George Wilder, and Collin
Powell. Jackson and Sharpton as is well known, are typical black men who were
raised in the middle of the turbulent era of the civil rights movement in the
country and in the forefront of activities. When they ran for president, they did
not come merely as Americans, but more as the representatives of the Negro
Americans. So, any vote for Jackson or Sharpton was a vote for the black
interest. One could not say the same for Wilder and Powell. Those two appeared
to be more of the elite type that could be at ease with both the Blacks and the
Whites. Yet, as older African American men, they very likely would experience
major difficulty to capture the heart of both sides in the racial divide.
Barak Obama in contrast, is the new wave of history. There
was a rumor running around that he could not even provide his birth
certificate. Some critics materialized on that to argue that he might not have
been truly American. He might as well have not been “American”. Yet, why not?
Nature has its own way. If Jesse Jackson cannot do it, if Al Sharpton cannot do
it, perhaps it had to take a “Barak Hussein Obama” to travel anew in his father’s
womb from the African motherland across the Atlantic,
and into the New World for nature to redirect
its course.
Obama does not fully belong to any group, race, or national origin.
The conservative pundits call him “the Messiah.” He might as well have been
Jesus Christ himself. As Jesus claimed to be both God and human, Obama could
call himself both African and American. Plus, he is not black, nor white; he is
both. He owes allegiance to no group, or he owes to all. He therefore turns out
to be the right material to rise above the divisive system to make history for
the children of Africa; they who have been suffering for so long under a system
of nonchalance, bigotry, and discrimination.
Jessy Jackson and Al Sharpton were too black. Having been
part of the generation of protesters of the sixties, having grown up under
tough discrimination, having born of parents brought forth from the slave
generations, Jackson and Sharpton could not have distanced themselves from the
anger that Reverend Wright has spurted out so profusely when he cried, “God damned America.” They could not bring
themselves and their own to cross the bridge and join hands in accolade with
the other party that had so much oppressed them. Hence, they remained the
candidates of their own kinds. Wilder, Powel, and others similarly could not
have mustered the energetic indifference that Obama applied to shatter and
enter the glass ceiling. Obama does not share such an American sentiment. His
black ancestors from his father’s side were never enslaved in the New World; and on the mother’s side, he was generally
raised by his Caucasians grandparents, and therefore he never really knew the
depth of repression. Hence, he could rightly maintain the attitude of
indifference, not known by the like of Jesse Jackson.
The romantic style the young Obama exhibited to undermine
opponents and critics to work his path into the White House has underscored the
brutish nature of his kind. Born of a Negro Kenyan father reportedly of a
rebellious character, who arrived in the United and excelled greatly in
academia only to return to Africa to drift away in oblivion and expired; and,
of a Midwestern American Caucasian woman whose one of her greatest passion
appears to have been a tendency to divert from the norm and to go into
excursions with black men, and who unfortunately succumbed prematurely to
cancer; the younger Obama could be justifiably compared to the mule born of a
horse and a donkey. He is neither one. Again, to be politically correct, just
call him Mulatto. Obama entered the American politics with the intrepidity of
the mule – bestial, brute, and fearless; and, with the attitude of the Mulatto
who owe allegiance to no race.
Welcome to the Future
To Obama, the past has ceased to be. To him, the young
Africans that came to this country chained like animals inside the hull of the
ship some hundred years ago were transformed with the triumphant arrival of his
father, possibly aboard an American Jumbo jet, to share the seat of knowledge
with the brightest and wisest American youths. In this view, the ship of
slavery had been sunk with Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation of slavery; the force
of discrimination died with Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech; and,
all barriers to opportunity were shattered with the acceptance of the Negro
into mainstream education and society.
With this Mulatto’s mentality, the son of Africa
has triumphed. Black, White, Yellow, and Red all came together with this new
American on November 4, 2008 to sing, “Yes we can.” Old and young, male and
female, sophisticated and simple minded, all have seen America anew.
Of course, many circumstances played at Obama’s advantage: the faltering
economy, the Iraq War, the McCain’s less than perfect campaign, and the
celebrated Sarah Palin. Nevertheless, Obama never diverted from a formidable contender.
His own campaign team never ceased to look up to him as the leader. In their
understanding, he was always there to bring reassurance when things got tough.
Many people saw it, with all those things going so wrong with the Republican
administration, there could not have been a better opportunity for history to
be made. Yet, some have counter-argued that the Democrats could have chosen one
of their white candidates to be nominated.
Therefore, it must be believed that Obama had fairly won his
nomination among his Democratic peers. So, no matter whatever advantage he had
over his Republican opponent, he had also brought all his wit into the game. He
never lost his composure; he never strayed too far from his main theme; he
never came short of campaign funding, and, he introduced to the system this new
voters registration drive that one could rightfully term, “the new Chicago
voting machine;” which made sure that the votes of the Black and Poor were not
left neglected deep inside the ghettos and the rural communities. Those votes assuredly
went to the Obama’s change machine. Coupled with all the voices of unsophisticated
people who saw McCain as a continuity of Bush and Palin as not fitted to reside
in the White House in Washington
DC, victory was assured for Obama.
With that, to agree with many, history has been made; and
with others, nature has continued to redefine its course. And, Africa has come into the reckoning.
By E.C. GRANMOUN
E.C. Granmoun is the author of "Bully: A Novel" ebook on amazon.com
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