"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Friday, January 04, 2008

Guess Who's Coming to New Hampshire?

Plotline: A young Harvard-educated black attorney running for President meets a new generation of white-guilty voters who are looking for a way to vote for the same kind of safe corporate-approved DLC candidate their parents voted for--but different in a way that makes it seem like their vote constitutes a rebellious, idealistic act.

They strike up a color-blind relationship based on a belief that their bond will allow everyone forget a 400-year history of racism, oppression, and terrorism against the other black people. Meanwhile, black voters become, not lovestruck, but carried away by their own desperate hope that the photogenic black attorney, played passionately and reverentially by Barack Obama, will, indeed, do something more for black folks than his campaign handlers have thus far even suggested.

Believing that skin color, which is invisible, and the promise to make deals with corporations, also invisible, is the kind of life that both sides are looking for, a marriage is planned. But first consent by a very large, boisterous, and secretly-racist family must be sought. Will the family's racism stay hidden, will it surface to block the wedding, or will the fact that all of this just happened too fast become reason enough to postpone the wedding for eight more years? What kind of scary scene will Uncle Dick's family make? Stay tuned.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous12:58 PM

    New Hampshire voters may have told pollsters they supported the black candidate, because they were embarrassed to admit they were racist, but that when it came to voting in private they supported his white opponent, precisely because he was not black.

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