Nutshell

[fredericks]

From The Onion's Sport Section: Kobe Bryant Scores 25 In Holy Shit We Elected A Black President.

And from this week's NY Times: New York Observed: That Certain Feeling. The random congratulations from folks and the awkward (for me, at least) politico conversations with my white patients have fallen off as we move further away from Election Week, but the author hits on everything that ran through my mind at those times.

Here I was thinking I was original when I brought up Obama and "magical negro" in the same breath, but a Google search and the Wiki page showed me what was what. Gotta love the zeitgeist.

Comments

[sternel.livejournal.com]

The fact that that wiki article lists God as a magical negro made me laugh really hard.

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

Bwah! God, Morgan Freeman, same difference.

[aearonlinn.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

Okay, from the right username this time...

“What exactly are people congratulating me for?”
Wow. What the hell.

You know, in retrospect, I feel like I should've seen something like that coming. But honestly, how do you prepare for that kind of Absolute Fucking... Weird? Because dude. That is weird.

As in, someone's going to get a damn PhD writing a thesis about it in ten years weird.

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

I'm paraphrasing Chris Rock, I think, when I say "Obama ain't writing me a check!" Seriously, I have respect for the man but as I didn't run his campaign I don't deserve personal congratulations for the events of the 4th of November.

Although, I can't front, the random blacks dudes who greeted each other with shouts of "Obama!" on the 5th? HI-larious.

[army-kitten.livejournal.com]

the whole "congratulations" thing just did not occur to me. sorry, but that is SO WEIRD. it must be seriously effing awkward for you. (>.<)

there must be some other element to this as well, though (in terms of what the guy who wrote the NYT article was talking about), that goes beyond "black being the new black." like what he said about feeling like the invisible man suddenly become visible was very close to it... as if, now that we have a black president and a shift in the racial power dynamic that has historically existed in the white house, maybe a lot of non-blacks have been forced to finally "see" black people in a way they never had before—i.e. as equal fellow human beings rather than simply the "unknowable other"?

which is not to sound like i think any of this is magical (LOL, well, in the sense of like a magical fix for the deep-rooted racial issues in the US). also, that might have been super inarticulate, since i haven't had enough coffee and it's difficult to articulate super complicated things in lj comments anyway.

no, wait, it's difficult to articulate them at ALL. XP

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

They've died down, but as we get closer to Inauguration Day I'm sure it'll pick right back up. :-/

as if, now that we have a black president and a shift in the racial power dynamic that has historically existed in the white house, maybe a lot of non-blacks have been forced to finally "see" black people in a way they never had before—i.e. as equal fellow human beings rather than simply the "unknowable other"?
In part, maybe. But the cynic in me thinks it somewhat improbable that Obama's election win means my brothers will have an easier time catching a cab in Manhattan. Or that security guards will choose to tail me less when I enter high-end stores. But time will tell.

[army-kitten.livejournal.com]

yeah, totally. i think the reason most people keep hollering that racism must be over now that we have a black president is that they want to believe that they don't have any work left to do in terms of changing society and themselves. because it's hard work.

and for those people who are freaked out about backlash, it seems like it could be a really good thing to see a lot of the white supremacist groups come out of the woodwork where they've been hiding (well, more or less). the more they're out in the open, the less people can deny they still exist (and the less people can deny there's still work to do).

not like it's not still gonna suck. but i guess we will just have to wait and see.

[captainschlumpy.livejournal.com]

weird. very weird. I think there are still a lot of white people out there that think they have to prove themselves. "Hey, I'm with it, I voted for Obama, so now there's no way I could be racist.....right?" and they feel the need to be part of the moment or something. It's also the fact that a lot of white people just worry so much about saying the wrong thing all the time that they are self-conscious and say stupid crap like congratulations! I'm sure they mean well, but I don't think they realize how weird it is. Or maybe they just think you are the all powerful fredericks and you helped Obama win with your l88t ninja-like skills so they want to covertly congratulate you?

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

*grin* Obama as president = an end of the phrase "but I have a black friend!"

Almost as bad was the assumption that I'd vote for Obama because he was black. Honestly, now. I never assumed white folks would vote for McCain just because he was white. Give me the benefit of a God-given brain. Jesus.

There needs to be a white guilt amnesty day. Or year. Or lifetime. Srsly.

[captainschlumpy.livejournal.com]

totally!
another problem was that reporters were going out of their way to find the people that they could get to say they were only voting for Obama because he was black. I heard it time and again. They asked really leading questions and then cut the interview as soon as they got that answer. It was pissing me off in the truck at work and I was yelling at the radio. I had to pull out the ipod to get away from the stupid.
White guilt amnesty day! lol! I can see it now!

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

The whole "black people are very excited to have Obama elected" phenomenon as well. Gah. It's pissing me off again.

And I figure November 28th is the perfect day for While Guilt Amnesty. I'll see if I'm up to posting some macros or something then.