CARIBBEAN TODAY


How should we think
 about racism in the
 age of President
Barack Obama? In his first
speech as president to the
nation's oldest and largest civil
rights organization, Obama's
answer to that question was a
rich mixture of his presidential
agenda, Bill Cosby's self-help
spiel, the Reverend Jesse
Jackson's political push and
rapper Jay-Z's oratorical flow.
 Yet, as a historical turning
point, what he said was less
important
than who was
saying it.
America's
first president
of African
descent takes
office in the
same year as
the 100th
anniversary CLARENCE
of a group PAGE
that helped
make it possi-
ble, the National Association
for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP).
 The irony of that happy
coincidence is how much it
haunted conversations at the
convention with a niinii
question: As civil rights-era
protests have declined and
blacks participate at all levels
of politics, is the NAACP still
relevant?
 Obama chose to answer
that question by reframing it.
Regardless of how relevant it
may or may not be at the end
of its first century, he offered
ways for it to become more
relevant in the next.

'THE PAIN'
 After his obligatory salute
to the debt that he and other
successful African Americans
owe to the NAACP's past
leaders, he left no doubt that
he believes "the pain" of prej-
udice and discrimination
against blacks, Latinos, gays,
lesbians, Muslims and others
is real and "still felt."
 Nevertheless, he pointed
out, they are not "even the
steepest barriers to opportuni-
ty today."
 More difficult, he said, are
the often-neglected "structural
inequalities that our nation's
legacy of discrimination has
left behind." This led into a
list of Obama policies and
programs that, while color-
blind in their application, have
particular importance to black
Americans who have dispro-
portionately been left behind.
 Yet, the most notable por-
tion of the speech came with
his self-help message, the same
message that last year Rev.
Jackson was caught by an open


TV. network microphone bit-
terly deriding as "talking down
to black people." At the
NAACP gathering, Obama
received rousing ,.I n11 as
he said, "Government pro-
grams alone won't get our chil-
dren to the Promised Land."
 He called for "a new
mindset, a new set of atti-
Itud against an internalized
sense of limitation in which
"so many in our community
have come to expect so little
of ourselves."
 His Cosbyesque message
to put away the Xbox and put
your kids to bed at a reason-
able hour, like so many of his
other messages, transcends
racial lines. Yet it has special
meaning to African Americans
who, polls show, vote liberal
but hold conservative moral
values. It is also a message that
would be hard to imagine
coming with much moral cred-
ibility from any president
except one who grew up as
Obama did, as a mixed-race
son of a father who aban-
doned him in his early child-
hood.

CLASSIC OBAMA
 The speech was classic
Obama. He found ways to
address issues related to race
in terms and values that are
not limited to any one racial
or ethnic community. It
fleshed out in many ways the
issues raised in his only other
major address on race, his
Philadelphia campaign speech
to explain his relationship
with the Rev. Jeremiah
Wright.
 Ironically the victory of
America's first black president
came partly because he chose
to avoid the subject of race,
no matter how much he was
taunted to address it by the
likes of Rush Limbaugh on
the right or Ralph Nader on
the left. It is politically safer
for him to show us models of
racial harmony than to tell us
about them. Like the
Huxtables on "The Cosby
Show", Obama and family vis-
ibly redeem the old 1950s
American middle-class family
ideal from the clutches of
irony and dare the chattering
classes to make fun of it.
 Watching his NAACP
speech, I was reminded of a
lingering question among his
skeptics: How could he have
spent 20 years in the church of
a racial firebrand like Rev.
Wright. One reason, I have
long theorized, is that along
with his religious lessons he
was learning the depths of
America's racial divide so that

(CONTINUED ON PAGE 10)


VIE uPO n T


Ow www-.caibeatoa.com *


The burden of excess baggage


President Obama's


new racial doctrine


Member American De
Most Insurance Accej

6701 Sunset Drive


KSouth Miami, FL 33143


hey say that still waters
 run deep, and all that
 glitters is not gold.
Apart from being deep, those
still waters may hold many
dangers and denizens of the
deep, monsters that lurk
there, hidden perils just wait-
ing for a chance to jump out
on any unsuspecting victim.
 So many things are not
what they seem, and so many
people also have hidden dan-
gers and perils lurking
beneath their otherwise inno-
cent exterior. Just read those
advice columns and you'll see
what hidden secrets exist
beneath the skin of seemingly
ordinary folks. This woman
wrote that she slept with 80
men in four years, and that
she can't even remember
some of their names. Now she
seeks advice.
 Talk about excess bag-
gage.
 I'm sure if we could see
pictures of those persons who
write those letters, we'd be in
shock, as never in your wildest
dreams would you imagine
that So and So Can't Mash
Ants Innocent Holier Than
Thou person was weighed
down by so much baggage.

SKELETONS
 Like it or not, everyone
has a past, but some have
more skeletons in their closets
than what's out at the ceme-
tery. As a result, many try to
hide it, and under pain of
death, will not divulge their
baggage to anyone.
 But here's the rub, it
always comes to the fore, as
the weight of the baggage is of
such, that it bears down on
their soul, shapes it, arrests its
growth, stunting it, and then
unleashes its fury on the per-
son nearest and dearest, the
poor spouse.
 Elsewhere our baggage is
usually made up of emotional
detritus, the flotsam and jet-
sam of our emotional history
that lies in wait, dormant but
not extinct and therefore
prone to erupt at any time. So
you target that nice young
man who has all the attributes


and even those who do not
manifest it in a physical way,
still inflict immense harm on
their spouses in different
ways. Their baggage is so rid-
dled with issues that they are
impossible to live with.
 Women do not escape,
although they tend to hide
their baggage and keep their
suitcases tightly shut for a
very long time. So many
women are carrying around
burdens that almost cripple
their emotional wellbeing.
Just the other day I heard
about these ladies, foxes, pret-
ty like money, but who were
counterfeit, as they had per-
haps the ultimate baggage of
all and had luggage that they
dare not open. They both had
sex change operations, were
once men, but are now living
as women and their partners
do not know. Now if those
partners ever find out, how do
you think they're going to
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 10)


 Practice of Optometry
 Comprehensive Eye Exams Contact Lens fits
 Diabetic Refinopalhy Evaluations
 Glaucoma Treatment and Management
 Children's Examinations Cataract Evaluations
 Post Lasik Care
 11417 S. Dixie Highway Miami, FL 33156
M (305) 378-1915



 PAUL W. MOO YOUNG, D.D.S.

 FAMILY DENTISTRY


 I EMERGENCY WALK-IN SERVICE


 Restorative Oral Cancer Screening
 Preventive Root Canal Treatment
 Orthodontics
mental Association


,te 4 (305)666-4334
a.Suite 114


that you
desire, and
you rush
headlong into
a relationship
without doing
a background
check.
 BadL
move. TONY
 Ten ROBINSON
months down
the line, both
of you are having a heated
discussion and suddenly you
hear the resounding noise of a
slap across your face and you
see stars. The man shat yu a
box and you never saw it com-
ing. All those years the man
had been carrying the emo-
tional baggage of being
abused as a child, so as a
result, he in turn becomes a
physical abuser and has
assaulted his past four women.

ISSUES
 So many men are weighed
down by emotional baggage


August 2009