Daily Obama: Barack Obama, Gospel And Verse And Bromide

Taken from The Day-Connecticut:

Sometimes you take a shot. On Wednesday evening I was interviewing Barack Obama and we were talking about effective foreign-aid programs in Africa. His voice was measured and fatigued, and he was taking those little pauses candidates take when they're afraid of saying something that might hurt them later on.

Out of the blue I asked, “Have you ever read Reinhold Niebuhr?” Obama's tone changed. “I love him. He's one of my favorite philosophers.”

So I asked, What do you take away from him? “I take away,” Obama answered in a rush of words, “the compelling idea that there's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naive idealism to bitter realism.”

My first impression was that for a guy who's spent the last few months fund raising, and who was walking off the Senate floor as he spoke, that's a pretty good off-the-cuff summary of Niebuhr's “The Irony of American History.” My second impression is that his campaign is an attempt to thread the Niebuhrian needle, and it's really interesting to watch.

On the one hand, Obama hates, as Niebuhr certainly would have, the grand Bushian rhetoric about ridding the world of evil and tyranny and transforming the Middle East. But he also dislikes liberal muddle-headedness on power politics. In “The Audacity of Hope,” he says liberal objectives like withdrawing from Iraq, stopping AIDS and working more closely with our allies may be laudable, “but they hardly constitute a coherent national security policy.”

In Chicago this week, Obama argued against the current tides of Democratic opinion. There's been a sharp rise in isolationism among Democrats, according to a recent Pew survey, so Obama argued for global engagement. There's been a sharp rise in pessimism about whether America can solve its problems, so Obama argued for optimism and possibility.

In other words, when Obama is confronted by what he sees as arrogant unilateral action, he argues for humility. When he is confronted by what he sees as dovish passivity, he argues for the hardheaded promotion of democracy in the spirit of John F. Kennedy.

The question is, aside from rejecting the extremes, has Obama thought through a practical foreign policy doctrine of his own — a way to apply his Niebuhrian instincts?

Conversational candidate

That question is hard to answer because he loves to have conversations about conversations. You have to ask him every question twice, the first time to allow him to talk about how he would talk about the subject, and the second time so you can pin him down to the practical issues at hand.

If you ask him about the Middle East peace process, he will wax rhapsodic about the need to get energetically engaged. He'll talk about the shared interests all have in democracy and prosperity. But then when you ask him concretely if the U.S. should sit down and talk with Hamas, he says no. “There's no point in sitting down so long as Hamas says Israel doesn't have the right to exist.”

When you ask about ways to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, he talks grandly about marshaling a global alliance. But when you ask specifically if the Iranian regime is deterrable, he's says yes: “I think Iran is like North Korea. They see nuclear arms in defensive terms, as a way to prevent regime change.”

In other words, he has a tendency to go big and offer himself up as Bromide Obama, filled with grand but usually evasive eloquence about bringing people together and showing respect. Then, in a blink, he can go small and concrete, and sound more like a community organizer than George F. Kennan.

Finally, more than any other major candidate, he has a tendency to see the world in post-national terms. Whereas President Bush sees the war against radical Islam as the organizing conflict of our time, Obama sees radical extremism as one problem on a checklist of many others: global poverty, nuclear proliferation, global warming. When I asked him to articulate the central doctrine of his foreign policy, he said, “The single objective of keeping America safe is best served when people in other nations are secure and feel invested.”

That's either profound or vacuous, depending on your point of view.

Black people, what the hell are we thinking

For those of you who don't know me, I refer to myself as a post-millenium Womanist. When I was in undergrad, I focused heavily on literature concerning critical race theory and gender studies. For one of my final reseearch papers, I wrote about hip hop feminism and how the onus is on women to change the way we are portrayed in the media. The superheads of the world are popular because we make them popular, we make it okay for Black women to exploit themselves sexually and to be exploited.

But when I saw this video, I realized for the millionth time that it starts in the home. about 45 seconds into this music video for Huey's Pop, Lock and Drop it, you see 8 and 9 year old girls doing exactly that--pop, lock, and dropping it.

I thought I had seen it all. Why is this considered acceptable behavior?

I remember when I had gone shopping about a month ago and I saw a 4 year old girl wiggling her little behind and getting into what the kids call a "3-point stance." Her mother was no where to be found.

Who is teaching our girls that being that sexual at that young of an age is cute? Why are we letting them grow up so fast?

Why do we allow adults to act that way in front of them? Because of course they're learning this at home.

I am a strong believer in girls' advocacy. I think female reproductive health is very important, but what's even more important is stressing maturity--8 years old is just too young for a little girl to be dancing that way. There is nothing cute or charming about a young black girl dancin like she's a stripper and actin like she's doin a tip drill.

A friend of mine suggested that I write a letter to BET. Not that he thought they'd actually pull the video but so that they know that at least one Black woman doesn't tolerate it. But herein lies the dilemma: I know in my mind that this song is degrading to women, with bow wow being heard in the remix tellin a woman to shake her ass and "if you not doin it for me, then do it for these dollahs." I know this song is terrible and that it's just another way that we disrespect each other. I know this, and yet when I was in H2O the other weekend with my girls and a few guys I was the first one cuttin a serious rug when the dj started playing this single. It isn't something I'm proud of, it isn't something I excuse or justify, but I think it's the dilemma that all women face. It is deplorable, and yet we can't get away from that beat.

But I digress. It's time that we stop talking about how f*cked up white kids are and look at our own children and what we're teaching them. We need to stop making videos like this one of our children and passing it off like it's cute.

It's not cute now, nor has it ever been.

Whose is it?

Now most of the time, this is a family blog, but if you're at work or around children, i'd thrown on some earphones or watch when you're alone.

I really debated for a long time about whether or not I wanted to talk about this youtube here on Ignorant Art. Then after actually reading the manuscript and then actually seeing the actual video, I couldn't just ignore this without giving my 2 cents and sharing it with all of you out there in the blog-o-sphere. Ladies and Gents, meet Dr. Alexyss Tylor. I found out later on today that she also has a myspace page, which features a crocheted model of a uterus. That alone just blows my mind.

Firstly, this ish is HILARIOUS, no doubt. Between the phrases, "He's screwing you into submission" and "don't let him hit that bottom" I must have woken up my neighbors with my laughter. It's almost like this woman just has an obsession with the crassness of the words themselves.

Now, there's is NO DENYING that this woman is crazy, as I commented on Facebook today when an acquaintance of mine posted it. But...I have to say....in some ways, she has a point. Yes (good)sex CAN give a man power over a woman. But why?

Where did we get to a point where sexual prowess=world power (so to speak)?

Where did we get to a point where sexual prowess=exertion of dominance in the relationship?


It makes you think about why sex and sexuality can drive the way men and women relate to each other.
















It also makes you wonder about the answer to life's eternal question: "can a woman REALLY have two g-spots?"

am i wrong for hopin the girl can read?

i mean....it's cool that she can dance....but i hope she's putting as much attention into her books as she is into walkin it out.

do they have her A+ tests on the refrigerator?

the ONLY Don Imus post that matters.

So as most of you know, Don Imus came under fire for his calling the Rutgers Women's Basketball team "nappy headed ho's" among other things (Click here if you have been living under a rock).

He's gotten a lot of flack for the comments...being called a racist, being called a sexist, and recently being taken off the air for two weeks.

Do I think he should be fired? absolutely not. I don't think they were meant to be hateful comments. I do think they were inappropriate, and probably offensive, but I also think this brings up the same type of issue the Michael Richards n-bomb fiasco brings up, and that is this: maybe we, Black people, need to stop calling our women hoes.

I realize that not using the N-word--even if it ends in an 'a'--won't change the racist attitudes of some white people--but it bothers me that when a black man calls a black woman a hoe we look the other way, but let a white man say the same thing to a black woman and it's a travesty.

Tell me, why do we hold white people to a higher standard than we hold ourselves?

I'm not really even talking about the references to bitches and hoes in hip hop--i think that's talked about enough--but this is about every day references to black women as hoes.

Just the other day one of my male friends said he doesn't buy drinks for "hoes in the club"

i've heard "there were some fine hoes there"

"this hoe jus rolled up on me"

and I'm sure there is a black man out there callin his sister/wife/girlfriend/jumpoff etc. a "nappy headed-hoe."

The point is, before we get on a white shock jock's case for degrading our women, maybe we need to check ourselves first.


And that is ALL I am going to say about that.

i had to post this

you gotta love the logic.

"but if he's gonna come in here, he's gonna kick MY ass!"

I don't normally like to talk about the girl, but...

this, ladies and gentleman, is beyonce's best song. period.

don't argue with me on this one.

alanis morrissette covers "my humps"

i am dyin laughin. alanis morissette is stylin on fergie hard right now.




i like it more than corinne bailey rae's jazz cover of "sexy back"; folks talked about the chick really bad after this, but i secretly dig it.



what is the deal with all these artists re-making pop hits? i mean it's funny but i'm wondering where the trend came from.

nelly furtado re-made Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy"...it was ehh, but if i find it i'll post it up.

Daily Obama: Jesus Christ, what's next?

i don't really know what to say about this one..so for now, i will say nothing.

From the Washington Post:

Sculpture of Obama As Jesus Causes Stir
By NATHANIEL HERNANDEZ
The Associated Press

Monday, April 2, 2007; 6:02 PM

CHICAGO -- He wears Jesus' robes and a neon blue halo, looks like Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and is causing a stir at a Chicago art school.

An undergraduate student's papier mache sculpture of Obama as a messianic figure _ entitled "Blessing" _ went on display Saturday at a downtown gallery run by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. By Monday, word of the piece had spread on political blogs, and the school had been flooded with calls.

David Cordero, 24, made the sculpture for his senior show after noticing all the attention Obama has received since he first hinted he may run for the presidency.

"All of this is a response to what I've been witnessing and hearing, this idea that Barack is sort of a potential savior that might come and absolve the country of all its sins," Cordero said. "In a lot of ways it's about caution in assigning all these inflated expectations on one individual, and expecting them to change something that many hands have shaped."

Obama's campaign worked Monday to the distance the Illinois senator from the artwork.
"While we respect First Amendment rights and don't think the artist was trying to be offensive, Senator Obama, as rule, isn't a fan of art that offends religious sensibilities," said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Cordero said the school had fielded plenty of calls about his work, "some of them from angry people." He also said he had heard from a few potential buyers.

Bruce Jenkins, dean of the art school's undergraduate program, said response to the piece _ part of a student exhibition _ has been mostly positive. He said people should take a close look at the sculpture and the context it was created in before judging it.

"When you see it, when you spend time it with it, you understand that it's not a provocative work at all," Jenkins said. "It opens a set of questions."

The Archdiocese of Chicago had not seen the work as of Monday afternoon and could not comment on it, said spokeswoman Dianne Dunagan.

The piece comes amid Catholic outrage in New York that led to an art gallery canceling an exhibit featuring a nude 6-foot-tall, anatomically correct chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ.
Artist Cosimo Cavallaro said Saturday that he has received threats as a result of the sculpture, called "My Sweet Lord." Cavallaro said the controversy spurred "thousands" of e-mail messages from people offering help, donations and exhibition space.