Washington, DC - Nigeria has sacked its Ambassador to the United States, based in Washington, DC, Brigadier-General Oluwole Rotimi (retired), for acts unbecoming of an Ambassador, for playing ethnic jingoism and especially for dredging up open-gaping wounds of the Biafra-Nigeria war.  Ambassador Rotimi has been given until March 31, 2009, to pack his bag and baggage and return to Nigeria.

A Nigerian foreign ministry statement said, “President Umaru Yar’Adua has approved the definite recall of Gen. Oluwole Rotimi as Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States.

“Accordingly, Ambassador Rotimi has been advised to wind up his affairs and formally take leave of his hosts in keeping with diplomaic practice,’’ according to the News Agency of Nigeria.  “He is to return home not later than 31st March 2009.’’

“Mr President is appreciative of the services and contributions of Rotimi to the progress and stability of Nigeria and wishes him well in his future endeavours,’’ the statement added.

The firing of Ambassador Rotimi is a culmination, since he presented his credentials and undertook his post on April 9, 2008, of the bitter feud that had developed between him and the foreign minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe.  Both of these individuals have played major roles in Nigeria’s military and political spheres, more so Maduekwe on the political and Rotimi on the military.  Brigadier-General Rotimi was a Quarter-Master General of the Nigerian, during the Nigeria-Biafra war, before being appointed Governor of the old Western Region of Nigeria, which now comprises of six states of Nigeria’s 36 states.  Maduekwe has held all kinds of political positions in Nigeria, including special assistant to presidential candidate Kingibe, Minister of Tourism, Minister of Transportation, and before his appointment as Foreign Minister was the National Secretary of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

The feud between the two men became an open warfare during the days of the President Obama inauguration.  As was customary during presidential inaugurations, Ambassadors had been warned in a letter that their respective heads of state were not invited to the inauguration due to security logistics and secret service concerns, especially given the huge number anticipated at the Obama inauguration.  However, the warning had nothing to do with the Obama inauguration, it was standard practice in all inaugurations.

But despite this, many African countries decided to send meaningless and uninvited delegations, who decided to invite themselves to Washington, DC, for one reason or the other during the inauguration.  In fact, a former Kenyan minister of state had protested the large Kenyan “official” delegation, had bought a television set and tried to present it to the foreign ministry, arguing that the delegation would have a better view of the inauguration proceedings watching it on CNN from Kenya than their hotel rooms in Washington, DC. 

So it was with Nigeria, that appointed a official delegation led by the former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, including one led by the foreign minister.  A high-powered conference, as a ruse, had been arranged at the Nigerian embassy, entitled “New Terms of Engagement with Africa for the Obama Administration.” Those in attendance included Obama’s chief adviser on African Affairs, Witney W. Schneidman, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, former Nigerian Ambassador to the U.S., Prof. George Obiozor, former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Nigeria and now a senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the council on Foreign Relations Princeton N. Lyman as well as former U.S. Ambassador to Botswana and Nigeria Howard Jeter.

An awkward situation developed, when it came time to introduce the Nigerian delegation, and Ambassador Rotimi, towing the government’s line, introduced Chief Anyaoku as the leader of the delegation, though the event was organized under the foreign ministry and the foreign minister was present. 

To make matters worse, someone at the Embassy with detailed information about the delegation and particularly the foreign minister’s, then provided intimate information to a writer who detailed the foreign minister’s movement and the frosty relationship that developed and how Ambassador Rotimi must have been forced to host a reception in honor of the delegation.  The information was published on ChatAfrik.com, one of Africa’s largest groups on the internet.

Then on Saturday, the 14th of February, one of Nigeria’s largest circulating newspapers, ThisDay, blasted out an incendiary letter that the Ambassador had written to the foreign minister.  With two reporters, one in Washington, DC, and the other in Nigeria, the paper quoted sources at the Embassy as saying, “the decision to recall Rotimi followed his running disagreement with the Foreign Affairs Minister, Ojo Maduekwe, over issues bordering on activities of the mission, policy, protocol and hierarchy.
The disagreement that was said to have started last year resulted in a series of correspondence between Maduekwe and Rotimi, culminating in a letter written by the latter in which he called the minister a tribalist and boasted, “I have dealt with people like you in the past. I was the Adjutant General of the Nigerian army that thoroughly defeated your ragtag Biafran army.”

It would be recalled that the eastern part of Nigeria seceded from the country in 1970, after thousands of them were killed in the North, resulting in the war that broke out after Biafra was declared in May, 1967.  The Igbo lost more than 2 million lives during the war that lasted from July, 1967 to January, 1970, and for most Igbo a reference to the war is a very sensitive issue, especially for an Ambassador who is sent to represent the whole country boasts about having dealt with the “rag-tag Biafran army.”

In the letter, the Ambassador stated as follows, “I consider your remarks unwarranted, malicious and untruthful by portraying me as an inept Head of Mission. In all my years of service to Nigeria, I have never been so comprehensively condemned, assaulted and disgraced as demonstrated in your letter. During the Nigeria/Civil war, I served as Quartermaster-General of the Nigerian Army under General Yakubu Gowon and organized the logistic support leading to the comprehensive defeat and surrender of ‘Biafran Army’ - a ragtag Army of rebels!”

In complaining to the Nigerian president and asking him to recall Brigadier-General Rotimi, Chief Maduekwe wrote, “The correspondences between me, as your Minister, and Ambassador Oluwole Rotimi, as your envoy, speak for themselves. The background, Mr. President, is that following the Ambassador’s persistent lack of communication with the Ministry, the capacity of my office to provide the necessary leadership in the conduct of our foreign policy in the world’s most powerful capital was being undermined.

“That led to the correspondences in question. His response, even as documented in his own hand, exceeds mere insubordination. His memos to me drip with a fundamental contempt for my person and office. The innuendoes and direct insults are so clear that I refrain from dignifying them with contempt.”

But then, the controversial online blog, Saharareporters.com, decided to inject ethnicity into the issue, painting the Ambassador as an saint and aggrieved party.  The site is a big thorn on the Nigerian government, especially the Yar’Adua administration, as it has published many unflattering exposes on the members of that government, and its greatest followers are the Igbo.  What irked most of its readers was quoting somebody the Igbo have come to regard as “Igbo-hater,” and an Yoruba tribalist, Prof. Bolaji Aluko, an prominent prominent political activist himself.

Saharareporters.com wrote, “Also a US-based Professor, Mobolaji Aluko, told Saharareporters that the minister, while he campaigned for former dictator Sanni Abacha to transmute into a civilian president in 1998, told him that they will have to solve the “Yoruba problem”

“Aluko said he still has Maduekwe’s “final solution to the Yoruba problem in Nigeria” ringing in his ears since 1998. “Tell him that I said so, and ask him whether I did not confront him with it right there in New York at the Council of Foreign Relations”. Abacha died soon after those events and Maduekwe moved to the new power brokers.  His search for strong authority brought him to the top of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2007.”

Most of the Igbo I spoke with were particularly contemptuous and derisive of Prof. Aluko’s comment, as the Igbo have come to hate Chief Maduekwe with a passion.  They feel his prominent positions in Nigeria’s political establishment have come at the expense of the Igbo interests.  They recall that he was one of the most prominent players in promoting the former and late dictator of Nigeria, General Sani Abacha, in turning himself into a civilian.  He was particularly accused of promoting Abacha as God’s incarnate.

Then again, during the former Nigerian president Obasanjo’s attempt to change the constitution and run for a third-term, they also recall that Chief Maduekwe was the leader of those prominent citizens who also championed Obasanjo as the best thing that happened to Nigeria, and how Nigeria was going to fall apart without Obasanjo.  Though Nigeria is hardly moving forward now, however total disrespect of the rule of law under Obasanjo has gone.

For anyone to suggest Ojo Maduekwe as a “tribalist” is the highest form of subterfuge and ignorance, bordering on mischievous attempt at xenophobia. 

One of the fall-outs of the imbroglio between the Ambassador (a Yoruba) and the foreign minister (an Igbo), is how the highly admired pristine online blog, Saharareporters.com, has permanently damaged its reputation, especially among its many Igbo followers and became merely an ethnic jingoist for the Yorubas of which the founder is a member. 

Ojo Maduekwe has in the past been accused of haughtiness and arrogance, but in his position as the foreign minister of Nigeria, he is yet to rise to the height of such luminaries like Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, Gen. Joe Garba, Gen. Ike Nwachukwu.  He is yet to tower and be acknowledged in the international arena, his only exception being the disastrous Washington, DC, first outing of the current president, regarding Nigeria’s position on AFRICOM.  Nigeria harvested an egg on its face.

There is hardly any doubt that a lot of the Igbo would be gleeful at Ojo Maduekwe’s downfall, but at this time, he has again survived.

On his part, Maduekwe has said it is not personal, and Nigerians who “Matters like this should be treated with utmost dignity and forgive me if my not being as forthcoming as you wish might give the impression that the solidarity of information I do enjoy with the media is being down played here”.
``Two things are involved here, one, the national interest, two, the dignity of people’s office whether it’s the office of an ambassador anywhere in the world, not just Washington.
``It’s a very important office which we should treat with a lot of respect as indeed the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs who is the president’s man to conduct foreign policies in 104 missions,’’ Maduekwe said.
(Full disclosure: The publisher/editor-in-chief of this paper, Chika Onyeani, is from the same Ohafia as Ojo Maduekwe.  In fact, Ojo’s son lived with the Onyeanis before proceeding to a medical school.  But they are hardly on speaking terms since Chief Maduekwe became “somebody"). 

Chika and Loretta Onyeani at their son’s wedding on August 10, 2008

From the 28th December, 2008, my village will be celebrating my age group’s last rites of passage as elderly men, (old men, actually if you wish).  It is the last ceremony we have to undertake which accords the rights to being recognized as old men.  Of course, there have been many other ceremonies before this, which are celebrated after you reach a certain age - from the time you are born, to the first things you have to do as a man, to the things you have to do before your age grade is accorded a name, to this last ceremony.  This ceremony is both for the men and women born around the same years.  With the mortality rate and longevity statistics, many in the age group have since died. 

My village, Okagwe, is one of the 25 villages that make up the people known as Ohafia.  Because of its strategic location, it plays a major role in guarding Ohafia from invaders, although it is not one of the major villages in the group.  What I mean by this, is that it is known for its warriors, for taking swift action against those who would attempt to encroach on its territory or any Ohafia territory for that matter and being merciless in retributive justice.  Okagwe shares borders with Abiriba and Edda, which has now been included in Ebonyi State, which continues to petition to be left to be part of Abia State.  Before the creation of more local government areas, both areas were in the Ohafia Local Government area (LGA).

I remember the shock I experienced when I was sent from Port Harcourt to go back to the village to start my primary school.  Imagine being uprooted from a township such as Port Harcourt was in those days, and being taken to what I thought was then a bush place.  Which would be a stupid description, because at that time the village already had two people in America, one who became the first Nigerian to have masters in chemistry in Nigeria, and one of the first batch of civil engineers - Mr. Ukoha Igwe Ukoha and Mr. Nkata Kalu Abba, who became the first Area Engineer for the country.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have a set of people who followed in the stellar achievements of these two individuals.

Anyway, as I said I remember vividly my experiences the first day I went to school to attend primary school:

“Raise your right hand over your head and touch your ears on the other side,” the teacher shouted at us.  The children numbered about 20 in a long line.  In the January harmattan morning chill, we wore short beige khakis, and white shirts.  There was only one girl in the group, and she wore a long white/blue dress.  I was one of the other 19 boys.  Most of us were bare footed like me.  We were lined up in the field where other older children were congregated, children who had already been attending school.

The people in this line were to be the new primary one students.  The tests of whether we were ready to start school, was what was being conducted by the teacher.  No matter how old or young you were, if you couldn’t raise your right or left hand over your head and touch your ears on the other side of your head, then you weren’t ready to start school.  This way of finding out whether you were ready or not to start school, made it difficult for those who didn’t grow tall enough to start school.

As I stood there watching what was going on, the teacher walked up to me.  “Okay, let me see whether you are ready to start school,” the teacher said to me in the Igbo language.  Actually, it was Ohafia language he spoke to me, which is a variation of the Igbo language.  In fact, at times, other Igbo are unable to understand what Ohafia people say even now.

“What’s you name,” the teacher asked.

“Chika,” I answered.

“You say, Chika, Sir,” the teacher corrected me.  “Now, say that.”

“My name is Chika, Sir.”

“Who is your father,” the teacher asked me.

“My father’s name is Dennis Okite, Sir,” I answered appropriately.

The teacher wrote my name on the notebook he was carrying.  “Okay, now raise your right hand over your head and touch the other side of your ears.” I raised my right hand and put it over my head.  My third finger easily touched the top of my ears.  The teacher went around me.  He looked at the finger, and looked at me.

“Do you know how old you are,” he asked me.

“I am five years old, Sir,” I answered, and the teacher smiled, and thought I must be a quick learner.

“You are a bit young, but your finger touched your ears.  You are ready,” the teacher told me.

He proceeded to the next child.

“What’s your name,” he asked him.

“Okite,” the other child answered.

“Did you hear me telling the other child that he must address me as ‘Sir’ when he answers.”

“Yes, Sir,” Okite answered.

“Okite, what’s your father’s name.”

“Chika, Sir,” he answered.

The teacher looked perplexed.

“Are you too brothers,” he asked.

“Yes Sir,” both of us answered.

“How old are you, Okite,” the teacher asked.

“I’m six years old, Sir.”

“So, you are the older brother to Chika.  Both of you have the same father,” the teacher remarked.

“Not true Sir,” I answered.

“What’s not true,” the teacher asked as he looked sternly at me.

“His father is ‘Papa Ukwu” and my father is “Papa Nta,” I replied.  His father was my father’s senior brother, so we addressed him as “Papa Ukwu,” older father, and addressed my own dad as “Papa Nta”, that’s younger dad.  I know that at a certain point in time, we started addressing “Papa Ukwu” as “Papa Nkro,” that’s grasshopper dad, as he harvested all kinds of things and brought them home, to eat, and then my dad was known “Papa Achichara”, that’s dad who brought biscuits home.

The stern look on the teacher’s face disappeared and he laughed.  “So his father is your faher’s older brother,” he remarked.  Both children tilted their heads in agreement.  Of course, it should be noted that this conversation was still going on in the native language. 

“Okay, Okite, let me see your finger touch the other side of your ear.  You seem to be the same height as your cousin,” he muttered.

Mind you there is nothing like cousin, or niece, or nephew in the native language.  Everybody was brother or sister, whether they were your cousins, nieces or nephews.  The native words were “nwannam nwoke,” (brother), “nwanem nwanyi” (sister) or “nwanem ukwu” could be interpreted to mean “my big brother or big sister”, or “nwannem nta” for either younger brother or sister, cousin, nephew or niece.

As to names, people answered their father’s first names as their last names.  Since my father’s name was ‘Okite’, that’s why I registered and started school as ‘Chika Okite,” while my cousin registered as “Okite Chika.” You would want to know why my full name now is ‘Chika Abba Onyeani.” When I got to Standard One, I read one of the psychology magazines (I believe, Psychology Digest), and adopted my grandfather’s name, Onyeani, is my last name - which paved the way for my siblings to answer their last names as Onyeani.

“Okay, both of you are ready to start in primary one,” said the teacher after examining my cousin touch the other side of his ears and proceeded to finish with the tests of all the other children on the line.

That was my first taste of the village.  In my class, almost everyone was older, except maybe the girl. 

The first age group ceremony we had to go through was to be given a name, that’s those of us born between 1-2 years apart.  It is a major campaign by the age group to be given a name, a name which is suitable to their temperament and to how they see themselves.  We campaigned.  Normally, you are given the name of an age group whose members have all died off.  My age group objected to that, preferring to get our own name.  We chose OBIMBA - heart or soul of the village.

Initially, village elders objected, insisting we must follow the tradition.  But we were head-strong and bent on answering what we believed was an appropriate name for ourselves.  Remember, we were sort of the first group to really be engaged in serious education.  In the end, the village elders acquiesced and we kept the name OBIMBA.  But before any age group could be officially conferred with a name, it would have to undertake a major project for the village.  Some would promise to construct a road, of course not with tar, but cut the trees and make a passable road, some did bridges, that’s get a big tree trunk and make a place passable.  But for OBIMBA, we promised to erect a building for the village primary school.  That building is still standing till today.  Of course, we had a big ‘coming out’ ceremony to celebrate our coming of age, and being given a name.  Actually, we were already in our mid-20s when this happened.

The second ceremony is the “Igba Uche” - the “Middle Passage” - is when you are recognized as a leader, having attained some recognizable achievements.  These recognitions have nothing to do with your individual achievements - your education, your honors, your conferments of chieftaincy titles.  In fact, in the age grade, those things mean nothing in the order of recognition - you are on the same level with everybody. 

The “Igba Ekpe”, “The Last Rites of Passage,” will take two days to celebrate.  First day is reserved for the age-group and village events.  It involves all kinds of merriment.  We are expected to perform some duties for the village, but I understand that since so many of the people have died or infirmed, we weren’t able to fulfill this obligation, in which case we have been assessed a hefty amount in lieu of the task the village had assigned.

Preparing for this event is financially quite scary, especially if you happen to be coming home from “abroad.” A lot is expected of you.  You have to do things in a big way.  Since I haven’t visited home since 2002, I have been told my house is leaking, the house has to be repainted, planks, zinc, paint have to be procured; contractors have to be hired, and since there don’t seem to be “new furniture,” new furniture have to be procured - new bed and mattress, new dining table set and sitting room set, as if I couldn’t survive on using the old furniture.  Though there is electricity, it hardly works, so make sure you have a powerful generator to power a fridge, air conditioner, re-charge your electrical equipments, including your laptop and cell phones.  All these are to make sure that people understand your importance.  The figures you are given to fix these problems and make the purchases are more than staggering. 

My own part of the ceremony involves providing my guests with a lot of food and drinks.  When I get there, I will go to the cow market, or send people with money to go there and buy one or two cows, depending on the cost.  (My second son is yet to recover from seeing the head of a chicken cut off when he was five years old, since he had been playing with it).  I have been told that I must hire outside chefs because if you allow your relatives to be in charge of the cooking, there wouldn’t be enough meat left to prepare enough food for your guests.  A band will be hired to play for two days, the same band that would accompany me on my 1.5 mile journey to the Isi Ogwe (Official Village Square).  Decked in my regalia, I will dance as the band plays and accompanies me.  Of course, most people cannot afford the band or hire outside chefs.  Actually, some people would kill some goats or chicken, and that would be it. 

On that first day of celebrations, the band will accompany me to the Isi Ogwe (village square).  There, I will join with other of my age mates, men and women.  We will proudly be seated in our uniformed outfit, which I have already paid for.  After the gun salutes, the age group will be called upon to officially present whatever they have done for the village.  After the presentation, our names will be called individually to pay a certain amount of money to the village.  Individually, those who can afford it, it is at this juncture that you get up and offer a more substantial sum of money to the village, or agree to individually accomplish a task.

The second day is reserved for entertaining people who come to pay you homage.  Everybody comes, especially to eat and drink.  They bring you presents, including money, especially your influential friends who you have invited from all the country and even those abroad.  Some times you can realize quite a big amount of money. 

Once you get my invitation, you know what to do. 

The decision I am trying to reach is the necessity of being physically present at the event, given the deep financial crisis at this time.  And given the jaundiced nature of newspaper advertisements in this country.  If you had all the tickets for myself and my wife, you are talking about $18,000 or more.  So the question I am asking myself is whether it wouldn’t be a lot better to offer half of this money for the payment of scholarships to deserving students in my village?

I am really looking forward to being there, I wish we will be able to go, especially given the significance of the event - MY LAST RITES OF PASSAGE AS AN OLD MAN - quite an accomplishment given the mortality rate from where I was born.  It should be a CELEBRATION!!  And not a time to whine. 

Normally, I wouldn’t be writing about a wedding, that’s not my forte, but I couldn’t pass the opportunity to talk about the most lavish, and at the same time, the most unusual union of an wealthy Indian family to an equally noble African family.  About two months ago, out of the blue, I received a call from Mr. Vincent Nwanze (actually Chief, actually Ogbuefi he corrected me, as he is from Asaba), but that’s how we knew him then when he was the Deputy Consul-General at the Nigerian Consulate in New York, and after the chit-chat, he proceeded to inform me that he had lost his sight, I guess due to glaucoma which I have and have basically lost my own left eye-site.  He then informed me that his son was getting married.  He wanted my address so that he could send me the invitation.  I didn’t really think anything about it, it never occurred to me that I would be going to the wedding, that’s until I received the invitation card a month later, and whoa, my wife and I said, what’s this?
The couple: Geetanjali and Chukwuemeka (Photo Credits: Loretta Onyeani)


We exclaimed ‘whoa’ because we had never seen such a beautifully bound and expensive wedding card in gold trimmings, and more surprises of surprises, the card announced that Geetanjali Gupta (oh! oh!, ringing bells) would be wedding Chukwuemeka Nwanze.  “An Indian marrying an Igbo!!”, I exclaimed to my wife.  That’s very interesting, I said.  It reminded me of my days in Dublin, Ireland, during my first posting when I was in the Nigerian diplomatic service.  After I settled down, getting used to eating Irish stew (yak), I chanced on a young Indian girl (well, I was young as well) who was at the university studying to be a medical doctor and we started dating.  Just imagine 1963, an Indian girl in medical school which means great family, dating a black African.  But let me tell you, it was one harrowing experience for both of us, actually not for me, but for her.  The Indian community in Dublin practically ostracized her, and I couldn’t bear her feeling so isolated, but don’t attribute magnanimity to my action, but we broke up, after there were more fish to be caught in the water. In other words, I already conjured up what these two young people must have gone through to arrive at this juncture, not so much on the part of the young Igbo man as much as the young Indian girl. 

Although you can’t judge a book by its cover, the wedding card told me that this Indian is not from a poor family, and though Vincent is noble, certainly you can’t classify him as rich.  The rich, expensive card told me that the Indian family must be rich.  So, when next Vincent called me I jokingly asked him how much dowry he was getting from his in-laws, after all in India the women paid the dowry, unlike Nigeria, although in their own neck of the woods, I believe the man is supposed to pay about N25 or so, that’s the Asaba area of igboland.  He laughed and I said that we were seriously thinking of attending the wedding, I couldn’t pass nosing around and finding out and confirming my assumptions.  I was sure it wasn’t going to be one of those marriages where our people would marry one of those fat, ugly, retched, uneducated, illiterate (didn’t I say that already) white trash, and proceed to make all kinds of noise.


The mansion formerly owned by the JC Pennesy clan, which a neighbor said millions have been spent in renovating.


Chukwuemeka being accompanied by mother-in-law to the temple after she welcomed him. 

Vincent called again to say that the couple said they hadn’t received our return card about our attending, I quickly told him that yes we definitely were attending.  So, it came to pass that on Saturday, June 21, my wife dressed to the hilt in her African queen outfit, I know this because at the wedding, a lot of white people and some blacks, came to ask her about her Gele (head tie) and her matching dress, to the extent I became embarrassed at all the compliments she was getting.  As a double chief, I dressed appropriately myself, though nobody paid me the same compliments like my wife except initially when we got into the shuttle bus, a beautiful Indian woman asked whether I was the father of the bridegroom, my outfit she said looked rich.  I thanked her, but observed that the father of the bridegroom wouldn’t be riding the shuttle bus with us, and everybody laughed.


Armed with the new gadget that my family gave me during father’s day, the Sprint Mogul, which I understand is better than the blackberry, don’t take my word for it, okay take my word for it.  It has all kinds of things I don’t even understand or know how to use it - a GPS, a cam corder, a camera, you name it it has it.  My nephew plugged the address to where we were going in Connecticut, or by the way did I mention that when I found out from the card that the area in Connecticut was “Westport” I certainly knew it was for the ‘OKEOZUS”, ha ha go translate that.  Piam, piam, piam, the GPS led us to the place and we got there at 5:45 pm and were directed to park our car at a designated place, where we would be picked up by a shuttle bus.  There were like 10 shuttle buses there.  Confirmation, confirmation of OKEOZU.  Everybody in the shuttle bus with us were Indians.  Here, I am thinking what are these people thinking about their daughter marrying a black African.  The women were in their beautiful saris, and the men in their designer suits, not like those ill-fitting suits I talked about in Capitalist Nigger.

By the way just exiting on Exit 18 on the Connecticut Turnpike (95 North), you already know that only the rich live there.  The bus drove about half a mile to this lavish mansion, which I understand was originally built by the mogul J C Penney, on an five acre estate.  When we alighted from the bus, a beautiful African music was wafting and booming, and the escorting group for the bridegroom had just left the gate leading him in.  We quickly joined in, and already I am impressed with the high life beat that we are adulating to.  I am decked out in my chieftaincy out, rich dress, red necklace beads on my neck, my staff of office, the well-carved and heavy walking stick.  The first person to recognize me was former Nigerian Consul General in New York, Charles Awani, then former Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Segun Apata.  I looked across and there was the other heavyweight of Nigerian society, the noted hall of fame plastic surgeon Dr. Ferdinand Ofodile and his beautiful wife; the ubiquitous George Nwabukwu, now a CPA, decked out in his rich agbada and now practicing from Hyattasville, who shouted as soon as he saw me, “the big publisher himself,” and then somebody I didn’t know a Dr. Austin Chike Monu, (it didn’t say, M.D.) who is based in Charlotte, NC.  Of course, I couldn’t miss Michael Nwanze, who I had always thought was the younger of the Nwanze brothers, and I was rudely corrected to my own shame, when after Vincent made his fatherly speech, and I turned around where all of us were seated - the Onyeanis, the Ofodiles, the Nwanzes, Nwabukwu and the Monus, I turned around and said to Michael, “aren’t you just proud of your senior brother.” Everybody descended me and shouted that’s his younger brother.  It was an embarrassment to say the least.


The Nigerian contingent leading the bridegroom to the mansion

Ogbuefi Vincent Nwanze and wife


The dancing drew the whole Indian crowd and a lot of them were rocking with us.  But most were merely intrigued.  At the front of the magnificent mansion, the music stopped and from the back where we were, we couldn’t see what was going on in the front.  But according to the information provided, it said that “When Chukwuemeka’s party reaches the doorsteps of Geetanjali’s house, the guests are given a warm welcome by Geetanjali’s family and close relatives.  The arrival of the marriage procession is declared by blowing a conch shell.  Geetanjali’s mother welcomes Chukwuemeka by placing a Kumkum Tilak (red colored power) on his forehead.  The Priest then leads the families into the Mandap (canopy) where the ceremony will be held."A while later, there was a loud applause, signaling that whatever rites had been performed were performed well for the bridegroom.  After that, the priest led the procession to the magnificent and imposing Hindu Temple (the Mandap).  On the front left side were three rows of seats reserved for the bridegroom’s families, and we sat there as Chukwuemeka and his parents-in-law were accompanied into the temple.  It was there that I first greeted Vincent, and his wife let him know that I was the one greeting him, but I know he recognized my voice.  We sat in the front with them and his brother Michael and his wife.  The first thing I noticed was that no cameras or cameramen allowed into the temple, and you must shoeless when you go in there.

The imposing temple where the Indian ceremony took place


Geetanjali being accompanied by her uncles into the temple


The Hindu Priest conducting the ceremony in Sanskrit


The Priest chanted in Sanskrit, and the ceremony involved rice and water.  The Priest informed us that “Lord Ganesh is the symbol of auspicious beginnings happiness and prosperity.  The priest beins the ceremony with an invocation to Lord Ganesh so that his divine grace, power, love and spiritual strength may remove all obstacles for Geetanjali and Chukwuemeka and bless those taking part.  Geetanjali’s father gives high honor to Chukwuemeka by offering him a decorated seat, water to wash his feet and honey water in a bowl to sip.  All these were performed, and then the bride was accompanied into the temple by her uncle.  There were more blessings and Chukwuemeka’s sister was asked to tie them up with Geetanjali’s sari and Emeka’s scarf to signify togetherness.  Let me just say it was a beautiful ceremony that took almost two hours.  After the ceremony, we were asked to get our seat assignments, and after that it was onto cocktail hour where liquor flew like water and hot hors d’oeuvres were served in abundance. And to cut this part shorter, everything was magnificent during the dinner, the father was very proud of Emeka, and Vincent was proud of Geetanjali and thanked his in-laws for a magnificent evening.


Geetanjali and Emeka exit from temple to greet his parents


The bride is certainly very happy as she and Emeka greet guests


Finally caught the father of the bride Rajat Gupta (right)


So, you are asking who are these people then?  As I noted already, Geetanjali must be strong-willed to persuade his parents to allow her to marry Emeka, but from the story the father told during dinner, it was really a non-issue.  She made up her mind and the parents agreed.  Both Geetanjali and Emeka met at Harvard University.  According to her father, after three years at Harvard, she decided she was tired and wanted to do something different, yes become a chef.  Her father said they agreed, but after a year, she got tired of that and returned to Harvard to finish her Bachelors, and then proceeded to do her MBA and JD (law) all at Harvard.  Emeka himself also finished his Bachelors at Harvard, but proceeded to Yale where he did his MBA and MD (physician) and he is specializing in ophthalmology, which his dad said might be because of his blindness now.  That’s really a great love and tribute to a father.  Geetanjali is one of the managers of the huge Harvard endowment fund, I believe amounting to over $28 billion, which is the highest of all universities.


There is Mr. Gupta again (left) talking to some guests


Some other parts of the estate


My wife before being swarmed with admirers


Again, I am sure you want to know who is this guy with the over-accomplished daughter, with the 5-acre estate with a mansion to boot in toney Westport, Connecticut. Rajat Gupta, the father of Geetanjali is a brilliant man, and holds many directorships in top companies and universities.  He is the Managing Director of that ivy league of consulting companies, McKinsey and Company, if you don’t know about the company, look it up.  He is the first outsider, not born in America, to hold that post.  Like his daughter he graduated from Harvard with MBA and is on the board of Harvard, MIT and University of Chicago, Proctor and Gamble, etc, etc.  For me, the most important thing is he contributes heavily to the Democratic Party, e.g. contributing $25,000 to the Kerry campaign in 2004.  He has contributed well over $80,000 to the Democrats and the Democratic Party.  The wife, Anita is a big Hillary Clinton fan, if you know what I mean - big contributions. By the way, she is a woman of timber and caliber in her own right.  Anita Gupta graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, like her husband and did post graduate work at Columbia University. She worked as an electrical engineer in the satellite division of Bell Laboratories.


The Ofodiles and myself, Chika Onyeani


The Nwanzes (Michael and wife)


Nwabukwu and the Monus


That’s the Guptas, now let’s come to the Nwanzes.  Vincent Nwanze is no slouch himself.  He graduated from a university in Ontario, Canada, and then did his Masters at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies where he graduated in 1973, was interviewed in Washington, DC by the Nigerian Federal Public Service Commission, offered a position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, went home to Nigeria in October, was transferred to Nigeria’s diplomatic office in November the next month.  He served in places like, Hamburg, Cote d’Ivoire. Kenya, and of course New York.  Listen, don’t tell him what I said about him in the first paragraph.  Actually, he is a great guy.  He’s very appreciative of the sacrifice his wife made on his behalf, that’s putting all her dreams behind because of his position as a diplomat.  But he says he is very fortunate, she raised high achieving children, the girl has a Bachelors and Masters, the second boy has a Masters and Ph.D. in electrical engineering, and the last born has B.Sc in economics.


The newly wed walks into the dining area


Newly wed or not, they still have to eat


Why did I devote this amount of keyboard to this wedding?  Well, if you don’t think it is worth it, you must be a louse.  Congratulations, Geetanjali and Chukwuemeka.  My wife and I had a great time.


As an aside, mind you, I am not a tribalist, but the Igbo culture is dying fast, linguistically and apparel-wise, when it comes to our men.  When we joined these people, before I realized who they were, I was wondering where were the Igbo as I thought they were rich Hausa or Yoruba invitees there, including Prof. Michael Nwanze, Nwabukwu, and this is the only bad thing I will say here, including the bridegroom himself.  I wondered why the father who was appropriately dressed didn’t deck him out in rich Asaba ogbuefi outfit.  I feel saddened that these people have lost their ways.  Let me say this, Igbo men are really very stupid culturally; they dress like idiots!! But our women I honor them every time I see them!!  Okay, I said that, go sue me. 


Why do you think I wouldn’t get my picture with the bride and groom!!


(By the way, don’t expect this kind of coverage because it would burn your pocket to the tune of $2,500, an economy class ticket or limousine service in the NY region, a room in a first class hotel, but you want to go high class, moi, oh oh, business class ticket, suite in a five-star hotel, stretch limousine, 5000 greenbacks.  Take it or leave, who gives a damn).

Then I looked at the actual figures coming in from both States, and shouted Holy Moses, what has the “Teflon Candidate” done here, mow down her opponent to size, wow Jesus of Nazareth, mind you I am a Godanist strictly African belief a belief that says we had our God before the advent of the white imperialists, Chukwu, Chineke, but this day okay this evening I was ready to invoe His name.  I went to the refrigerator and poured a good amount of white wine.  It needed celebration, all the polls were wrong, wrong, wrong, except the not-so-trusted Zogby that has been quite off in this election circle.

On the Pennsylvania primary day on April 22, 2008, I practically raised my high blood pressure to high havens I am sure.  I was switching from one channel to the other, between CNN and MSNBC.  Mind you, I never watch False News Channel, even their so-called big number ‘Idol, well except their ‘24’.  When I was switching channels, I was in clicking from one website to another.  Within the first hour when the networks or the cables had not called the result for Hillary, there was some jubilation that something was about to happen.  Even somebody on mydd.com, who said he had a solid source for what he wrote, “stunner about to happen,” predicted that Obama might win PA.  Well we know how it ended with Clinton winning with 10%.

So, I said to myself yesterday, I wasn’t going to suffer the same thing.  My heart is too important, I love Obama dearly, but I wasn’t going to run up my blood pressure again yesterday.  So, I decided I was going to be far away as possible from my television, in fact I went to New York and went to a Starbucks place on 42nd Street and 3rd Avenue, to while away the time.  As lively as the discussion was about what I should be to sell more newspapers and get more advertisers for the African Sun Times, my mind was not in it because I continued to think of what was going on in Indiana and North Carolina.  Earlier in the day, I had discussed with a sista from Uganda who in the Washington/Maryland area that I was just praying that Obama should win North Carolina even with a squeaker, it didn’t matter, let it be just a win.  With all the battering he had been subjected to both by the media and the Clinton campaign, a win in NC by 50+1 would be a big win.  Losing IN and NC would spell disaster for his campaign.

Before 9 pm, I said to my friend, listen I have to go, I have some other things to do, I was no longer listening, the bug of knowing the result had bitten me again.  I went to the parking lot near the UN and retrieved my car, and quickly turned on the radio.  There was rubbish discussion about something, I wasn’t listening either, waiting for the clock to sound 9 pm when the news about the elections would come on.  Well, was I pleasantly surprised when the announcer said that Obama had won North Carolina, it was called immediately for him after the polls closed, and that results from Indiana continued to be counted though Clinton was leading.  To me, that was ok, it meant that she hadn’t won outright as the closing polls had suggested that she would win with between 5 to 12% points in Indiana, and how the polls were tightening in North Carolina.

My heart beat was no longer sputtering, and I became calm, revved up my car and jetted home.  By 10 pm I was back in the house, I pressed the tv button to MSNBC, which I have lately been watching avidly, but only on Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Verdict with Abram Adams.  For some reason, I found Chris Matthews to be propagating for Hillary, and forget the Road to the Whitehouse nonsense, where David never allows anybody to finish their thoughts.  On election nights, Keith is more in charge though the two are the anchors.  Did you read where Chris Matthews is said to be jealous of Keith, and that Keith looks down on him.

Then I looked at the actual figures coming in from both States, and shouted Holy Moses, what has the “Teflon Candidate” done here, mow down her opponent to size, wow Jesus of Nazareth, mind you I am a Godanist strictly African belief a belief that says we had our God before the advent of the white imperialists, Chukwu, Chineke, but this day okay this evening I was ready to invoe His name.  I went to the refrigerator and poured a good amount of white wine.  It needed celebration, all the polls were wrong, wrong, wrong, except the not-so-trusted Zogby that has been quite off in this election circle.

Then came the nail-biter, would Clinton or Obama prevail in Indiana, with Clinton leading with 28,000 votes.  Before I could say Jack Daniels, it had gone up to 30,000, and I said here comes Texas and Ohio night again.  Now it’s up to more than 40,000, but the Lake County area where Gary, IN is located is yet to report, and the Mayor there is predicting an earth shacking results/game changer when the results come in.  The punditocracy are speculating about an Obama win or Clinton squeaking in with 1800 votes.  Hold on!  Holly Molly, what just happened here!!  The difference has dropped down to 16,699 votes, with 44% of Lake County reporting.  On lousy CNN, they have started impugning something unsavoury going on, what with Chicago just near there, implying a Chicago kind of politics to the result.  All those pundits who were doubting Obama could do it, well they had eggs bashed on their faces.  So, Tim Russert on MSNBC chimes in, ““We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it,” he said on MSNBC. “Those closest to her will give her a hard-headed analysis, and if they lay it all out, they’ll say: ‘What is the rationale? What do we say to the undeclared super delegates tomorrow? Why do we tell them you’re staying in the race?’ And tonight, there’s no good answer for that.”.” Any doubts.

Todd Beeton, on mydd.com says who had been wavering between both candidates, but leaning towards Clinton on getting the job done, had this to say this morning.  “The upshot is that there is no way to spin away what happened tonight: Senator Clinton had a really bad night and Senator Obama had a phenomenal one. It’s impossible to overstate the significance of what he accomplished, not only considering what he’s overcome over the past three weeks but also considering how decisively he denied Clinton what she needed to continue to have a credible path to the nomination. To put it plainly, tonight was her final shot and she needed to win Indiana by 8-10% and to lose NC by 1-3%; in other words she needed to do about 10% better in each state than she did in order to keep Michigan and Florida relevant and the popular vote in play for superdelegates. Unfortunately, she was unable to do either. Zogby was right this time and Survey USA...and I...were wrong.” Okay, okwu agwugo1!  Need I say more!!

Just now, I read that former Senator and presidential candidate, George McGovern, was switching sides and supporting Barack Obama.  But more importantly, he called on Senator Clinton to quit.

By the way, this morning, I called the data cruncher who had brought us so many innovations in cyber space, like ‘moving on’, but more importantly the ‘SPIN ZONE,’ and that’s Bolaji Aluko.  He and I had a hearty laugh and a patting on the back.  Yeah, our dog ran a fantastic race, yeah he won big!!

One of the world’s most famous writers, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, once described former President Bill Clinton as America’s first Black President.  In her eloquent defense of the President during the worst period of his presidency, in the October, 1998 New Yorker Magazine, Morrison said of Clinton

Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.

.  Here’s the whole article. The united and unflinching support of African-Americans during the McCarthy-era like investigation of Clinton saved his presidency. 

It was the powerful congressman from Harlem, Charles Rangel, who invited the then first lady, Hillary Clinton (before becoming Hillary Rodham Clinton) to run for the Senate, representing New York state.  In a note written by New York Times’ Adam Nagourney, he quoted CNN’s Larry King as saying the following in an interview establishing Rangel’s indisputable role in her senate run, with the following

Mr. King opened the program by introducing Representative Charles B. Rangel, the Harlem Democrat who has been the chief booster of a Clinton candidacy. ‘’This was your idea, Rangel, so we’ll start with you: How in the world did you think up ‘Hillary for Senate?’ ‘’ Mr. King inquired. ‘’You were the first to say it.’’

.

When loud criticism of the expensive nature of his initial attempt to locate his post-presidential office on the 56th floor of the Carnegie Hall Tower, at a cost of $738,700, it was the black community that again came to his rescue, by alluring him to move his office to Harlem.  The Harlem Office with bigger space was leased at a cost of $210,000, thereby saving another bout of media criticism. 

Africans themselves have bought into the Clinton myth.  In Africa, he was the most revered white man that Africans came to believe as the embodiment of decency and god-like qualities.  During his two visits to Africa, he was given an hero’s welcome.  Wherever he went, hundreds of thousands of people came out to welcome him.  Women and children danced in the streets, and waived American flags.  African leaders bent over backwards to welcome him.  Then iconic world leader and South African president, Nelson Mandela, embraced Clinton’s visit and gave him enthusiastic support, telling him that “Africa doesn’t forget their friends.”

The question is were all these embrace and admiration of Bill Clinton misplaced; didn’t he plant the bases for which Blacks assimilated him as their own and defended him at every opportunity from attacks by his detractors?  Of course, the answer is a big YES.  In answering this, you have to understand the dichotomy of the black experience.  We are like dogs that have been starved for weeks, and then a ‘kind’ individual dangles and drops a piece of bone to us: it makes us eternally grateful to that individual.  Even have we embraced bad behavior, “raised by single mother, cheating of a wife, junk-food-loving, jazz-playing, as Toni Morrison wrote, as the basis upon which we have assimilated him as an black man.  Rather a sad commentary on our own values.

Going back to my BIG YES answer, Clinton courted the black community when white politicians of note, including Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan had instituted policies that had ostracized the community, and made it plain to them that their concerns weren’t really of interest to these leaders, who had employed code words to inflame white anger at blacks.  So here comes the white knight in shining armor who dangled that piece of bone to us after almost 16 years of continuous starvation - he courted us, ate with us, went to church with us, sang our songs, danced boogie with us, played saxophone with a black touch.  As governor of the southern state of Arkansas, he brought blacks into his administration.

In his first run for the White House, blacks were overwhelmingly supportive of Clinton, as he paraded a number of prominent blacks as his confidants, including Ronald Brown, Vernon E. Jordan, both of who played major roles in his administration, as well as others, like Susan Rice.  President Clinton was credited with creating more than 22 million jobs during his eight years in office, and most blacks feel a load of gratitude that they benefited in this upward mobility of becoming middle-class families.  He created a commission to discuss race, which fizzled and died for lack of action.  These were hot issue points, in terms of dangling the bone, which mesmerized the black folks about Clinton’s authenticity as one of us.

But let’s look at some of Bill Clinton’s actions. Remember the ‘Sister Souljah moment’ during the 1992 campaign, where Clinton, in an attempt to show his conservative credentials, lashed out at Sister Souljah for her offensive comment, in which she had said in a Washington Post article

“If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?

and then presidential candidate Clinton had quickly interjected

If you took the words ‘white’ and ‘black’ and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech.

.  After winning the presidency, you remember how quickly he dropped the nomination of Lani Gunier as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, who had been falsely accused of advocating the creation of “congressional black districts” to ensure more black representation in Congress, a process which is popularly known in political terms as gerrymandering.  We are reminded of how Republican leader, Tom DeLay used this same method in creating more safe seats for Republicans in Texas.  His welfare policy created the problem of black men having to abandon their families, and with his one strike policy in terms of drug possessions, the incarceration rate of blacks increased dramatically during his administration. 

The adulation we Africans have had for him could then be misconstrued as having been misplaced.  The Clinton administration did not lift a finger when over 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus were murdered in a genocidal rage.  As much as we might dislike President Bush’s policies, including this author, we can safely say that he has invested untold billions of dollars in Africa, and fought forcefully for a resolution of the Darfur problem.

We could cite many more instances of this pattern of adopting policies detrimental to black interests, while pulling a wool over our eyes with tokenistic pretensions.  But the wool has finally been lifted over our eyes during this primary campaign, where the so-called ‘First Black President’ has used every occasion to try to marginalize Senator Barack Obama into a black candidate, which he has woefully failed to achieve.  We are left with the impression that all along that his love for blacks was calculated and convenient when it was time to use the black community.  It is now apparent that the Clinton myth as a Black President has been broken, tarnished and dumped in the gutter.  Incidentally, any visit to Africa now would earn him a worst scorn than the one that had been given to President Bush in his first visit to the continent.  I doubt that former President Nelson Mandela would ever deign to meet with him again. 

There is a group of whites who believe that African-Americans are not Americans. One of those is the racist right-wing conservative commentator, Patrick Buchanan, who has written a lengthy blog on how Blacks should be grateful that they were brought to America as slaves. First, he called Barack Obama’s brilliant speech on Tuesday, March 18,

It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, “everybody but the rioters themselves.”

Nobody is calling Buchanan on his incendiary comments when he said:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.

The assumption here is that the 40 million blacks in America have never contributed anything to America, don't even pay their taxes, only whites pay taxes. 

There is no doubt that the Republican strategy in this election is to drive the race issue and divide the country.  As the right-wing has avowed, it is going to do everything to make race the issue, by this type of discussion.  Buchanan is determined to inflame white anger, especially the so-called blue-collar voters, because he knows that blacks are going to react to his diatribe, and then he would shout, you see what I am saying.  He and his ilks have tried to marginalize, with the aid of former President Clinton, into a black candidate.  But there is a backlash, even the false news channel is having problem with its Obama-bashing.  Read his trash here.

MSNBC is reporting that Senator Barack Obama’s passport file was breached on numerous occasions, Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14.  It said that three employees at the State Department were involved. MSNBC disclosed that the State Department said that “Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for inappropriately looking at Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s passport file.” Josh Marshall at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com has disclosed the significance of the three days that the breaches occurred, including the Jan. 9th, the day after the New Hampshire primary, Feb. the 21st, the day of the Texas debate, and March 14th, “the day the Wright story really hit.”

The MSNBC piece said the State Department would not release the names of the offending individuals, and said that they were low-level employees.  The State Department didn’t believe the information accessed by these individuals were given to outside groups. 

Yeah! Go tell it to the marines. The people who brought us the Wright video of course are not satisfied with the damage they have done to Barack Obama, they want to dig further for more information to continue their campaign of character assassination against Obama.  These people are really vile.

Talk to most black people in the last few days, they would tell you, “Well, we said it would happen.  They haven’t physically shot him like they did the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, but what they are doing is nothing less than the lynching of a fine black man.” First, they tried to hang him because of his middle name, “Hussein”.  They brought the noose around his neck.  They alleged that he was a Muslim because he was born in Hawaii and his white mother took him to Indonesia when he barely knew who he was, that he attended an Islamic Madrassa,

In fact, it was a major American news media, the Fox News Channel, that was used to give legitimacy to this totally false character assassination of Obama.  On January 19, 2007, a Fox News commentator Steve Doocy of the “Fox and Friends” program, had this to say:

DOOCY: Why didn’t anybody ever mention that that man right there was raised — spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father — as a Muslim and was educated in a madrassa?

DOOCY: We should also point out that Barack Obama’s father is the one who gave him the middle name of Hussein. And the thing about the madrassa, and you know, let’s just be honest about this, in the last number of years, madrassas have been, we’ve learned a lot about them, financed by Saudis, they teach this Wahhabism which pretty much hates us. The big question is was that on the curriculum back then? Probably not, but it was a madrassa and the big question is whether or not any of these revelations about the fact that he was a Muslim — right now I understand he does go to the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, although not a regular parishioner — but raised as a Muslim, went to a madrassa.” Read the whole disgusting episode at http://www.thinkprogress.org

Now, this is a major American news media that continually harangues the airwaves about being “fair minded and balanced”, yet it neither called Doocy to order, but allowed the smear to fester. This campaign of calumny started after Senator Barack Obama had soundly beaten both Senators Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in the first primary in Iowa, January 3, 2008, where he scored an upset victory by winning 38% of the vote in a state that is more than 95% white.  The right-wing lynch mob reared its head, abetted by the Fox News Channel, but were driven back by the millions of white Americans who felt it was “Time for Change.” All these were designed to slow down the Obama momentum and movement, so that come February 5’s Super Tuesday, he would be knocked out of the race.  But Obama again prevailed by winning 13 out the 21 states contested on the February 5 Super Tuesday, again with the overwhelming support of white voters.  This black man, who is the off-spring of a black African father and a white American mother, was confounding the right-wing lynch mob.  More accusations of his Muslim affiliations had to be manufactured and paraded for the national media. 

This time, it was the Washington Bureau Chief of the NBC Network, Tim Russert, during the February 25 Democratic Party’s debate in Cleveland, Ohio.  An unsolicited endorsement of Barack Obama by America’s Nation of Islam leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan, provided fodder for Tim Russert’s totally partisan questioning of Obama.  Mind you, Obama had not gone to Louis Farrakhan for endorsement as Senator John McCain had done in going to Rev. John Hagee to endorse his candidacy.  According to Media Matters, “Russert began the discussion of Farrakhan by asking Obama, “On Sunday, the headline in your hometown paper, Chicago Tribune: ‘Louis Farrakhan backs Obama for president at Nation of Islam convention in Chicago.’ Do you accept the support of Louis Farrakhan?” Indeed, that was the headline of a February 25 Tribune article discussing Farrakhan’s endorsement of Obama. But Russert did not note the article’s subhead: “Senator has criticized him, says support not sought.” Nor did he mention that the article quoted Obama spokesman Bill Burton as saying: “Senator Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan’s past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister’s support.”

This well executed plot to hang Obama with Minister Farrakhan’s incendiary statements and denunciations of Jews as evil, was to play to the emotions of the fair-minded whites who had been backing Obama.  It worked very well, and for the first time after having won consecutive 11 states elections, Obama lost Ohio by one of the highest percentage he had done by 10% points.  Obama has been nicked with their knife, and the sharks have smelled blood.  It is time to tighten the noose around Obama’s neck, crank the whip on the horses and let his body hang for the vultures, or the carcass thrown as red meat for the frenzied sharks.

Again, it would be the Fox News Channel that would provide the rabidly angry lynch mob that found that their quarry was still breathing and alive, and ready to resurrect himself and fight back.  Fox paid untold amount to unearth a four-year old video of Barack Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, making indendiary statements about the America’s treatment of blacks.  Now, the debate is no longer about Barack Obama being a Muslim who was raised in the Madrassa, it is now about how he stayed in the church of an pastor, allowed the pastor to offer him his Christian spiritual guidance, married him in a Chrsitian union with his wife, baptized his children in a Christian church.  Now, without ever altering any of the incendiary statements attributed to Rev.,Jeremiah Wright, the lynch mob has succedded in immobilizing this warrior candidate for a while.  Hour on the hour, the cable networks plaster their screens with Barack Obama standing next to Jeremiah Wright, and in the next second showing a video of the Rev. spewing his offensive comments.  There is jubilation in the right-wing Jim Crow land.  The candidate who stands the chance of beating their candidate is being run out of town.

Just as millions of white Americans looked the other way or acquiesced as hundreds of blacks were lynched in the deep South, there is the concerted effort to provoke a backlash against Obama’s candidacy and momentum.  You know how ironic this is:  America has spent almost a trillion dollars fighting the war in Iraq, a trillion that could have been used in providing better health care, jobs, school funding, etc. for the so-called blue-collar workers who are being wooed by the right-wing Jim Crow lynch mob.  But now the ascendant concern of many of these people is the condemnable statements of a pastor, not the recession, not the imploding stock market, not the mortgage crash, As Obama said, in four years, there will be another distraction and the problems would continue to pile unresolved. 

In his electrifying, brilliant, charismatic, forceful, courageous, powerful and eloquently delivered speech on Tuesday, Barack Obama has served notice that he is as qualified and even more than his opponents to accede to the presidency of the United States.  Admirably, he did what had to be done without compromising his inner core principles: decency for himself and for his fellow man, who made disgusting statements that are now being used to lynch him.  He has denounced and rejected Rev. Wright’s harangues but he wasn’t about to disown him.  In this particular aspect of his speech, Obama said, “And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.:

That’s courage, that’s principle. Even if the right-wing Jim Crow lynch mob succeeds in dethroning his candidacy, Barack Obama has impacted the world in this 21st century as no one else has.

America has a choice, Obama threw the challenge.  “For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.”

In the end, only the tone-deaf will ignore his call to America.  Barack Obama, you are a warrior king.  You have brought smiles and made the whole world proud of you.  Nothing right now can ever diminish you.

Here’s the full post of Barack Obama’s speech.  It was a great speech, and we hope that America finds time to digest it and puts behind her the divisiveness of attacking Jeremiah Wright, who has not done worse than many of the white preachers, but who Obama has distanced himself from.  Obama spoke forcefully for understanding of the black community as well as the white community.

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:  “People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans—the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who’s been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old—is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know—what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

The last several days in the Democratic presidential primaries has been dominated by the excreta foul-mouthed ignorant and patently racist rantings of an former congresswoman and a former vice-presidential nominee of the Democratic party in 1984, Geraldine Ferraro.  Ms. Ferraro was chosen by Walter Mondale as his vice-presidential running mate.  Ms. Ferraro had told a California newspaper, The Daily Breeze, that Senator Barack Obama’s meteoric performance in the current Democratic party primaries was only due to the fact that he was black.  Her actual statement, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.  And if he was a woman [of any color], he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.” When the controversy over her comments burst open, she became defiant, said she wasn’t going to apologize, and charged that “Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?”

Everybody has been tip-toeing around the fact that Geraldine Ferraro has always been a racist.  She is a racist, pure and simple.  The chorus has been “Oh, I have known Gerry for a long time, she;s not a racist.” Give me a break, a la former President Bill Clinton.  Pure bunkum!  This is the duplicity of the American political class, not calling spade a spade.  The so-called non-racist Gerry Ferraro said the same thing of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1988, when she told Chicago Tribune’s Frank James that “If Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.” It is a pattern that says that blacks can never get anywhere, if they were not black, which comjures the bogey of affirmative action where blacks are taking the positions of whites only because they are blacks.

This is of course a pattern that the Clintons have tried to steer this campaign, to marginalize Obama’s candidacy as a merely black candidate, appealing only to black voters.  Coming before the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, it certainly looks like a calculated strategy to frighten white voters who have voted for Obama in droves in so-called ‘red states’ where there are hardly blacks in those states.  As a strategy, it would seem to have worked in the Mississippi primary, where 74% of white voters voted for Senator Clinton, though on closer examination it really was an improvement for Obama in those southern states. 

This brings me to the decidedly disingenuous discussion of race and prejudice and as to why Obama should not be considered white?  No, no, guys, sheath your swords and let’s look at this as civilized individuals.  It is Obama’s antecedent that makes the ignorance of a Geraldine Ferraro so palpable.  Of course, an Italian-American like Ferraro who until recently was not considered a true white, would be quite jealous of the kind of accomplishment that Obama on his own has achieved.  If we were to measure what Obama should be called through the life he has lived, he should be attributed with about 75% of white, and 25% of black.  I know everybody is already shouting blasphemy.  But that should be the truth.  Let’s examine the fact.  Barack Obama, Sr., married Obama’s mother and they had Obama, Jr.  But after only 2 years, his black father abandoned him to be raised by his single white mother and his white grandparents.  In actual fact, out of Obama’s 45 years of existence, only 2 years of his life we can really claim to be our black.  Of course, this is tongue in cheek as we understand that an ounce of black blood is all that is needed to classify anyone as black.

Obama’s white family has as much claim to him as he has allowed us to have 100% claim to him.  Why shouldn’t they?  He speaks of his single teenage mother raising him, and then taken over by his white grandparents.  Hence the anger that the late mother would have felt about the pirahnic frenzy with which so-called angry white women are attacking her son.  For God’s sake she was his mother.  A single mother abandoned by her black husband when she was only 20 years old.  But she didn’t break down and raise a vagabond as a son.  Not only did she not break down, she on the contrary achieved a stellar career that allowed her to influence the lives of the indigent, achieving her Ph.D. in the process. 

Writing in the International Herald Tribune, a sister publication of the New York Times, Janny Scott of the New York Times wrote of Obama’s mother, Stanely Ann, “Fluent in Indonesian, Soetoro moved with Maya first to Yogyakarta, the center of Javanese handicrafts. A weaver in college, she was fascinated
with what Soetoro-Ng calls “life’s gorgeous minutiae.” That interest inspired her study of village industries, which became the basis of her 1992 doctoral dissertation.

She became a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development on setting up a village credit program, then a Ford Foundation program officer in Jakarta specializing in women’s work. Later, she was a consultant in Pakistan; then she joined Indonesia’s oldest bank to work on what is described as the world’s largest sustainable microfinance program, creating services like credit and savings for the poor.

Visitors flowed constantly through her Ford Foundation office in central Jakarta and through her house in a neighborhood to the south, where papaya and banana trees grew in the front yard and Javanese dishes like opor ayam were served for dinner. Her guests were leaders in the Indonesian human rights movement, people from women’s organizations, representatives of community groups doing grass-roots development.”

It is the above kind of stellar achievement that feminism is made of, a teenage mother who didn’t wilt in the face of abandonment, but on the contrary went back to school and achieved success on her own terms, not the pampered life of a Hillary Clinton.  Shame on the so-called angry white women.  They cannot carry the shoes that Obama’s mother wore.  What would Stanley Ann have thought of their bunch - disgraceful. 

We have claimed 100% of Barack Obama because he has allowed us to do so, though in the final analysis he has nothing to do with how he is defined, the world defined because he has black blood in him, disregarding the white blood he also has and the antecedents of how he was raised.  We have claimed 100% of Obama because he has made us proud, becoming the ‘first black man’ to be named editor of the Harvard Law School Journal, marrying one of our most qualified, brilliant and gorgeous black woman who has proceeded to bear two beautiful children for us. 

The politics of race and prejudice has been deliberately thrust into the primary, in the Clinton ‘win-at-all-costs strategy, using surrogates like Geraldine Ferraro.  Only the uninformed and bamboozled would fall for it.  Obama has as much claim to being white as we have to claiming 100% of him. 

Congressional Democrats are beginning to coalesce around an Obama candidacy as their party’s presidential candidate, believing that an Obama ticket would be more helpful in getting them elected, especially in the so-called “red states.” “Red states” are the states in the U.S. that normally vote for the Republican party.

In the well-connected Hill report by Alexander Bolton, he writes, “Democratic lawmakers are becoming persuaded that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) would have a more positive impact on other Democrats on the November ballot than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Obama’s advantage over Clinton would be most pronounced in the Southern and Western states President Bush carried in 2000 and 2004, say lawmakers interviewed by The Hill. In total, 32 members of Congress from these “red states” have endorsed Obama. Twenty-two lawmakers from those states have backed Clinton. 

Briton Simon Mann has finally confessed to plotting a coup against the oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, according to BBC. A lot of concern is being shown for his welfare, while the fact that he tried to overthrow the government of an independent African country is being ignored.  Mann said that he was not the “main man”, but then who is?  He should say so, and point the right finger at Sir Mark Thatcher, son of the former British Prime Minister. 

With 99% of results announced in Mississippi, Barack Obama had 247,456 votes or 60%, while Hillary Clinton had 153,745 votes or 38%.  That’s 22 percentage points higher.  Polls before the election had said that Obama would win with about 15%.  Interesting thing also, according to MSNBC exit polls, Blacks constituted 50% of the Democratic electorate. There has been talk about the Catholic vote going overwhelmingly for Clinton, but according to the exit poll, Catholics constituted 8% of the voters, and 54% voted for Clinton, while 42% voted for Obama.  Another interesting point is that Republicans made up 13% of the voters, and they overwhelmingly supported Clinton with 76% to 24% of the vote.  What do you make of that?

Associated Press (AP) and the three cable networks, CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC, have all projected Senator Barack Obama as having won the Mississippi Democratic primary election.  However, the talking heads now point to the fact that half the electorate in Mississippi are African Americans.  But they forget to mention that Obama won last Saturday’s primary caucus in Wyoming which is overwhelmingly white.  It has a population of less than 1% blacks in the state.  In fact, of the 29 states he has won, only South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana has a sizable number of blacks in the population.

Let’s look at the 2006 census of populations in these states - Louisiana 31%, Maryland 27%, South Carolina 29%, Georgia 30%, Virginia 20%.  You could then see how warped their analyses are.

Senator Obama’s camp today put out a statement questioning Senator Clinton’s “claim to be experienced in foreign policy.  Below is the full memo from a former State Department official, Greg Craig, who is advising Senator Obama, originated the memo.  If you wish to know about Craig, read more about him here.

To: Interested Parties

From: Greg Craig, former director, Policy Planning Office, U.S. State Department

RE: Senator Clinton’s claim to be experienced in foreign policy: Just words?

DA: March 11, 2008

When your entire campaign is based upon a claim of experience, it is important that you have evidence to support that claim. Hillary Clinton’s argument that she has passed “the Commander- in-Chief test” is simply not supported by her record.

There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton played an important domestic policy role when she was First Lady. It is well known, for example, that she led the failed effort to pass universal health insurance. There is no reason to believe, however, that she was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton Administration. She did not sit in on National Security Council meetings. She did not have a security clearance. She did not attend meetings in the Situation Room. She did not manage any part of the national security bureaucracy, nor did she have her own national security staff. She did not do any heavy-lifting with foreign governments, whether they were friendly or not. She never managed a foreign policy crisis, and there is no evidence to suggest that she participated in the decision-making that occurred in connection with any such crisis. As far as the record shows, Senator Clinton never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue – not at 3 AM or at any other time of day.

When asked to describe her experience, Senator Clinton has cited a handful of international incidents where she says she played a central role. But any fair-minded and objective judge of these claims – i.e., by someone not affiliated with the Clinton campaign – would conclude that Senator Clinton’s claims of foreign policy experience are exaggerated.

Northern Ireland:

Senator Clinton has said, “I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland.” It is a gross overstatement of the facts for her to claim even partial credit for bringing peace to Northern Ireland. She did travel to Northern Ireland, it is true. First Ladies often travel to places that are a focus of U.S. foreign policy. But at no time did she play any role in the critical negotiations that ultimately produced the peace. As the Associated Press recently reported, “[S]he was not directly involved in negotiating the Good Friday peace accord.” With regard to her main claim that she helped bring women together, she did participate in a meeting with women, but, according to those who know best, she did not play a pivotal role. The person in charge of the negotiations, former Senator George Mitchell, said that “[The First Lady] was one of many people who participated in encouraging women to get involved, not the only one.”

News of Senator Clinton’s claims has raised eyebrows across the ocean. Her reference to an important meeting at the Belfast town hall was debunked. Her only appearance at the Belfast City Hall was to see Christmas lights turned on. She also attended a 50-minute meeting which, according to the Belfast Daily Telegraph’s report at the time, “[was] a little bit stilted, a little prepared at times.” Brian Feeney, an Irish author and former politician, sums it up: “The road to peace was carefully documented, and she wasn’t on it.”

Bosnia:

Senator Clinton has pointed to a March 1996 trip to Bosnia as proof that her foreign travel involved a life-risking mission into a war zone. She has described dodging sniper fire. While she did travel to Bosnia in March 1996, the visit was not a high-stakes mission to a war zone. On March 26, 1996, the New York Times reported that “Hillary Rodham Clinton charmed American troops at a U.S.O. show here, but it didn’t hurt that the singer Sheryl Crow and the comedian Sinbad were also on the stage.”

Kosovo:

Senator Clinton has said, “I negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo.” It is true that, as First Lady, she traveled to Macedonia and visited a Kosovar refugee camp. It is also true that she met with government officials while she was there. First Ladies frequently meet with government officials. Her claim to have “negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo,” however, is not true. Her trip to Macedonia took place on May 14, 1999. The borders were opened the day before, on May 13, 1999.

The negotiations that led to the opening of the borders were accomplished by the people who ordinarily conduct negotiations with foreign governments – U.S. diplomats. President Clinton’s top envoy to the Balkans, former Ambassador Robert Gelbard, said, “I cannot recall any involvement by Senator Clinton in this issue.” Ivo Daalder worked on the Clinton Administration’s National Security Council and wrote a definitive history of the Kosovo conflict. He recalls that “she had absolutely no role in the dirty work of negotiations.”

Rwanda:

Last year, former President Clinton asserted that his wife pressed him to intervene with U.S. troops to stop the Rwandan genocide. When asked about this assertion, Hillary Clinton said it was true. There is no evidence, however, to suggest that this ever happened. Even those individuals who were advocating a much more robust U.S. effort to stop the genocide did not argue for the use of U.S. troops. No one recalls hearing that Hillary Clinton had any interest in this course of action. Based on a fair and thorough review of National Security Council deliberations during those tragic months, there is no evidence to suggest that U.S. military intervention was ever discussed. Prudence Bushnell, the Assistant Secretary of State with responsibility for Africa, has recalled that there was no consideration of U.S. military intervention.

At no time prior to her campaign for the presidency did Senator Clinton ever make the claim that she supported intervening militarily to stop the Rwandan genocide. It is noteworthy that she failed to mention this anecdote – urging President Clinton to intervene militarily in Rwanda – in her memoirs. President Clinton makes no mention of such a conversation with his wife in his memoirs. And Madeline Albright, who was Ambassador to the United Nations at the time, makes no mention of any such event in her memoirs.

Hillary Clinton did visit Rwanda in March 1998 and, during that visit, her husband apologized for America’s failure to do more to prevent the genocide.

China

Senator Clinton also points to a speech that she delivered in Beijing in 1995 as proof of her ability to answer a 3 AM crisis phone call. It is strange that Senator Clinton would base her own foreign policy experience on a speech that she gave over a decade ago, since she so frequently belittles Barack Obama’s speeches opposing the Iraq War six years ago. Let there be no doubt: she gave a good speech in Beijing, and she stood up for women’s rights. But Senator Obama’s opposition to the War in Iraq in 2002 is relevant to the question of whether he, as Commander-in-Chief, will make wise judgments about the use of military force. Senator Clinton’s speech in Beijing is not.

Senator Obama’s speech opposing the war in Iraq shows independence and courage as well as good judgment. In the speech that Senator Clinton says does not qualify him to be Commander in Chief, Obama criticized what he called “a rash war . . . a war based not on reason, but on passion, not on principle, but on politics.” In that speech, he said prophetically: “[E]ven a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.” He predicted that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would “fan the flames of the Middle East,” and “strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda.” He urged the United States first to “finish the fight with Bin Laden and al Qaeda.”

If the U.S. government had followed Barack Obama’s advice in 2002, we would have avoided one of the greatest foreign policy catastrophes in our nation’s history. Some of the most “experienced” men in national security affairs – Vice President Cheney and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others – led this nation into that catastrophe. That lesson should teach us something about the value of judgment over experience. Longevity in Washington, D.C. does not guarantee either wisdom of judgment.

Conclusion:

The Clinton campaign’s argument is nothing more than mere assertion, dramatized in a scary television commercial with a telephone ringing in the middle of the night. There is no support for or substance in the claim that Senator Clinton has passed “the Commander-in-Chief test.” That claim – as the TV ad – consists of nothing more than making the assertion, repeating it frequently to the voters and hoping that they will believe it.

On the most critical foreign policy judgment of our generation – the War in Iraq – Senator Clinton voted in support of a resolution entitled “The Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of U.S. Military Force Against Iraq.” As she cast that vote, she said: “This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make—any vote that may lead to war should be hard—but I cast it with conviction.” In this campaign, Senator Clinton has argued – remarkably – that she wasn’t actually voting for war, she was voting for diplomacy. That claim is no more credible than her other claims of foreign policy experience. The real tragedy is that we are still living with the terrible consequences of her misjudgment. The Bush Administration continues to cite that resolution as its authorization – like a blank check – to fight on with no end in sight.

Barack Obama has a very simple case. On the most important commander in chief test of our generation, he got it right, and Senator Clinton got it wrong. In truth, Senator Obama has much more foreign policy experience than either Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan had when they were elected. Senator Obama has worked to confront 21st century challenges like proliferation and genocide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He possesses the personal attributes of a great leader – an even temperament, an open-minded approach to even the most challenging problems, a willingness to listen to all views, clarity of vision, the ability to inspire, conviction and courage.

And Barack Obama does not use false charges and exaggerated claims to play politics with national security.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has shot down suggestions that there will be a Democratic dream team as the Clintons have been suggesting lately.  Said Pelosi in Waltham, Mass.  She said, “Think that ticket either way is impossible,” talking to NECN’s Alison King.  She attributed her observation to Senator Hillary Clinton’s continuous disparaging of Senator Barack Obama as not being qualified to be commander-in-chief, while touting Republican nominee, John McCain, as being qualified.

Senator Obama has dismissed any notion of a dream ticket with Senator Clinton, she being the candidate and he being the vice presidential nominee.

ABC’s News Senior National Correspondent is reporting how many bloggers are questioning the motive behind Senator Clinton’s new ad which deliberately altered the color of Barack Obama to make him look darker.  See the photo here: 

The bloggers believe it is the same kind of doctoring employed by Time Magazine to make OJ Simpson look more sinister.  See the photo here:

It is becoming very clear how racist the Clintons have been, and now showing their true colors.  Her fear mongering may have paid off, but more people are beginning to see that she is a woman who would do anything to get elected, even resorting to changing Obama skin color.  Pathetic, indeed.

The heavyweight boxing match between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can today be considered to be in its ninth round.  It has always been how dare this upstart and the black community to challenge the hand that fed them, especially for those who had always regarded Clinton’s husband as the black president that blacks never had.  The fight wasn’t supposed to have gone this far.  But despite the heavy betting in favor of the she who had had it all, Senator Clinton, first lady to a governor, first lady to a president, senator from that state of robber barons, New York, and the other a former vice-presidential candidate and a former senator Senator Obama surprised everybody by winning the first round, delivering devastating blows to his then two opponents.  But Hillary, having learned the tricks of the trade, by intimidating and scaring away individuals like the wimpy and scurrilous so-called America’s Mayor Giulliani, came back in the second round, New Hampsire, to land some of her own blows, winning that round. 

In the third round, South Carolina, the boxing match instead turned into a sort of WWE wrestling match.  As we know how WWE wrestling matches are chereographed, and how dirty that could be, Clinton deployed her husband on the side of the ring to hit Obama with a two by four while the referee was being distracted by the Queen of Mean.  But the crowd booed, in this case, the media.  Obama deflected the attack and went on to win the third round decisively.  The Queen of Mean didn’t know what hit her, and she quickly expelled her husband from the ring side, instead letting him take pot chops from the arena. 

Imitating the immortal “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” Muhammad Ali’s boast against Sonny Liston, but without the aura of the great man, Senator Clinton promised the world how she was going to end the fight in the sixth round, on “Super Tuesday”, but when the round ended unfortunately for her it was Barack Obama who was still standing tall, having landed more blows himself and winning a lot more points.  Surprised by the blows, Senator Clinton wilted, losing the next several rounds as her opponent continued to pile on points.  But like every gladiator, especially with knowledge of dirty and gutter in-fighting, she warned that she was going to throw the kitchen sink at Obama, and throw the kitchen sink she has.  The blows she has landed by winning round nine, including the big states of Ohio and Texas, have knocked Obama back to the ropes, and he may just have been saved by the bell. 

Let’s face it, guys.  Senator Obama went from being an amateur to the big heavyweight fight at Madison Square Garden, when he was picked to be the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.  That one punch at the Madison Square Garden established him as an formidable fighter.  But the test of how prepared he was was to come in 2006 when he ran for the United States Senate against another formidable Republican opponent, Mr. Jack Ryan, a successful investment banker who made millions, but decided to leave that field and went into teaching at an inner-city school.  A contest of juggernauts - pitting a successful investment banker against a successful Harvard University Law School Journal President and community organizer.  But that test never happened, due to no fault of Obama’s, but to the sucker punch delivered to Jack Ryan by his actress wife, Jeri Ryan (remember Star Trek), who accused her husband of forcing her to perform nude in front of other people at Clubs.  Ryan was forced to drop out, and the Republicans scurried around to come up with that carpet-bagger Ambassador Alan Keyes, the perennial also ran in heavyweight bouts, the presidential primaries, but who never seems to ever get out of the first round.  Of course, Obama wasted no time in knocking him out with a one-two punch.

Yesterday, the two gladiators fought the ninth round.  For all intents and purposes, it has to be agreed that Senator Clinton delivered some devastating blows to Barack Obama, knocking him back to the ropes.  It wasn’t like Obama didn’t see the blows coming.  While waiting for the ninth round to come, Clinton had signaled Obama that she was going to throw the whole kitchen sink at him, according to the New York Times. 

First, it was the Clinton’s connivance with NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL), that did a skit portraying the media as fawning over Obama.  The Clinton campaign exploited this, and the media swallowed this carefully orchestrated attack.  There is this herd mentality of the American media that says as soon as one shouts loud enough, they would follow it line and sinker.  The media began their ritual soul-searching as to whether they had been biased against the Queen of Mean.  The opposite of being biased, is also being biased against your opponent, and the media has been pounding on Obama since then.

Then, last Sunday, on CBS’s 60 Minutes, the moron Steve Croft decided to bring up the rumors swirling around in the internet about Obama being a Muslim.  Croft decided to ask Clinton whether she believed Obama was a Muslim.  Rather than answering a “no” to the question, Senator Clinton demurred and prevaricated with her answer with, “oh, if I were to take him at his words,” or “as far as I know,” thereby fueling the rumor, especially that of an Obama supporter in the interview who had mentioned these concerns about Obama.  As an individual who would have been regarded as an fair journalist, why didn’t Croft pose a counter question to Obama as to the ugly rumors swirling about Clinton’s private life, or whether Obama believed the Clintons had anything to do with the death of Vince Foster.  Where was the fairness in this question and where was the fawning/cuddling of Barack Obama? 

The third kitchen sink was the advertisement in Texas, which questioned Obama’s qualification to be president and commander-in-chief.  It showed a phone ringing in the White House at 3 a.m. in the night.  Mrs. Clinton is seen fully dressed in her designer dress picking up the phone.  Listen, I must admit it was an devastating and negative effective ad, first used by late President Lyndon Johnson against McGovern.  The media lapped up this caricature without questioning why a president should be fully dressed at 3 a.m. in the morning, waiting for a phone call.  The media never asked when was the last time she ever picked up a red phone.  Of course, totally ignored was Obama’s quick response to the ad, pointing out how Clinton made the wrong decision, the first time she picked up that “red” phone. 

The fourth kitchen sink was self-inflicted, when Barack Obama’s economic adviser decided to play amateur diplomacy, and with for all people the consul-general of Canada in Chicago.  Imagine!!  The first rule of a presidential primary campaign is never meet with foreign diplomats, as Senator Kerry learned the hard way, as when he started boasting about how presidents in other countries preferred for him to win the presidency in 2004.  In fact, why meet with a underling like an consul-general, who proceeded to transmit a convoluted account of what had been discussed, implying that Obama was merely mouthing his anti-NAFTA rhetoric for political purposes only.  While the Canadian government has denied that Obama’s private position was different from his public position, a bit late, it is also whispered that it was the Canadian Prime Minister who made public the original transmittal from his consulate in Chicago. 

As earlier stated, the ninth round of this heavyweight boxing fight between Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton has ended, in what has been christened “Mini Super Tuesday,” with Senator Clinton landing the largest blows, with her wins in the huge states of Ohio and Texas.  But Senator Obama is still standing, after receiving the heavy blows and he is still far ahead in points because of his past performance in earlier rounds.  But if he thinks he is going to coast to victory in this vicious fight, he is totally mistaken, because the Queen of Mean fights very dirty.  There is no hurrah in being a loser, the world of politics is littered with the carcasses of the Al Gores and John Kerrys of this world.  The adage that “good guys finish last time,” is quite appropriate here.  You cannot compete against a man/woman who is used to playing in the gutter, while you are trying to protect his/her dirt spraying over your immaculate dress.  No, it doesn’t happen that way.  You have got to get down to the same gutter, defeat your opponent, go to the shower and clean yourself, raise the championship belt aloft, smile at the crowd, call for unity and praise your opponent for giving you a great fight. 

Do we even remember who Senator Kerry beat for the nomination? Yes, we know who Bush beat, John McCain, because he is running again.  If he doesn’t want to be a dot on the historical chart, Senator Barack Obama needs to stop being St. Obama, take off his gloves and fight the Queen of Mean in the gutter.  As we say in Africa, “Do me I do you, God no go vex.” In other words, slap me and I slap you back, God will not be angry. 

Five companies that make the rubber used to make condoms, plus other products, have been fined a total of $366 million, for price-fixing.  The companies include the Italian firm Eni, Germany’s Bayer, US firms DuPont and Dow Chemical, Japan’s Denka and Tosoh.  The product, Chloroprene rubber is used in many household products, including rubber soles and condoms.  The US is yet to fine these companies, and the fear is that the US’s fine will be heavier. 

The question here is not that the EU fined these companies, but the fact that we Africans are big consumers of condoms, especially what with the HIV/AIDS pandemic in our continent.  I believe it is time that we begin to look into all these settlements of the products that Africans consume in large quantities.  You remember the $250 billion settlement by cigarette makers in the US, I don’t know how much the European Union fined these cigarette makers, and then the asbestos case.  All these are products that Africa consumers. 

At the least, Africa should be demanding to share in these settlements, or on the alternative, begin their own probes with a view to getting settlements for Africans as consumers.

When I received an email from a Mr. Richard Cambridge of the World Bank inviting me to the Bank’s “first Open House for African Diasporas,” and that the event would be held at the Bank’s headquarters in Washington, DC on November 29, 2007, I thought it would be something quite interesting and I quickly replied that I would attend, though that is a production day for the African Sun Times.
At the event, Mr. Cambridge wrote, “At this event, we expect to share information on the several ways in which the World Bank Group can support the African Diaspora in contributing to development in their home countries, and as well, how the Diaspora can support on-going and proposed Bank investments in Africa.  Please share this invitation and information with other African Diaspora organizations and individuals in your community....

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He is a star by any yardstick.  He seems to be the best thing in raising black political consciousness to another level.  He exudes confidence that is lacking in some of our black leaders, and his reach across the American divide could be called the real rainbow coalition than that name connotes.  Yet, a major debate continues to rage amongst so-called black intelligentsia, especially amongst some black journalists, as to the authenticity of Senator Barack Obama’s blackness, especially given some poll figures showing Obama trailing Senator Hillary Clinton amongst potential black voters, which in itself would seem an oddity.

We should remember that Senator Barack (Hussein) Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to an African father (Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.) from the Luo ethnic group in Kenya, and to a white mother, Ann Dunham) from Wichita, Kansas, in the United States.  When Obama was two years old, his father left the mother and proceeded to Harvard University to pursue a Ph.D., which he didn’t complete instead returning to Kenya.  Eventually, the couple officially divorced when Obama was six years ago.

Now, it has been drowned on her heads and consciousness that if you have one percent black blood in you, then automatically you are black.  But in Barack Obama’s case, he exceeds that percentage, actually achieving a 50% or even more as Obama writes in his memoir, “Dreams of My Father,” that his father was pitched black.  What could be more black than that?

It therefore comes as a big surprise when certain cretins of African-American writers and personalities continually question the authenticity of Barack Obama’s blackness.  This man has demonstrated beyond any doubt a shining example of what an outstanding Blackman should be.  In 1983, Obama graduated from Columbia University in New York, then secured employment as an consultant at the Business International Corporation, where he was making more money than the job subsequently secured when he quit and relocated to Chicago, Illinois, to become a community organizer.  He left in 1988 to enter Harvard Law School, where he eventually became the Editor/President of the Harvard Law Review, the first black man to have achieved that post in the then 104 year history of Harvard University.  Apart from this, he also graduated magna cum laude.  With this type of achievement, anybody with half a brain could see how he would have been courted by the best law firms in the country.  But Obama chose to return to Chicago to continue to serve the indigent community in Chicago.  When measured against some of the so-called Black leaders, it would be interesting to know what a lot of them have done for the average black man.

It was during the 2004 senatorial elections in Illinois that the “not-black-enough-like-me” and not “plantation slave descendant” began to surface, when the Republican Party drafted the carpetbagger, Ambassador Alan Keyes, to become a challenger to Obama.  From the word go Mr. Keyes thought he could wean the black vote away from Obama with his vitriolic attacks in which he consistently tried to make the distinction that though they were both from the same race, they were not from the same heritage.  In an interview with well-known radio personality, Steve Malzberg, Keyes had this to say: “. . . Barack Obama and I are of the same race, but we are not of the same heritage. And there is a distinction. Race is something physical. Heritage is something that may have an element that is physical or biological, but that also includes other elements of history and experience--the kinds of things that have helped to shape the mind and heart of an individual and that are not determined by physics and biology. And we are of different heritages. I’m of a slave heritage, and he is not. I have wrestled all my life with the reality of the injustices done to my ancestors, and it has been deeply important to me. It’s influenced fundamental choices that I have made in life, things I take seriously, things I am still, to this day, preoccupied with, like the question of justice and liberty. So, I think it makes a tremendous difference, and if we just look at it with racial blinders on, we will miss the fact that these are two people of the same race, but they are not two people of the same heritage.”

Of course, Alan Keyes was disgraced by the voters in Illinois when Barack Obama won the elections with over 70% of the vote, in an election year in which Republican were taking seats away from Democrats.

Another one of those black neo-cons that the Republican Party always call on to do their dirty attacks on progressive black leaders is Stanley Crouch of the Daily News in New York who wrote an article last year, entitled “What Obama isn’t: Black Like Me.” Facetiously, for one thing, Barack Obama is not black like Crouch, who could be a carbon copy of Obama’s father in being pitched black.  Calling Pan-Africanism a naive idea, Crouch wrote, “Why then do we still have such a simple-minded conception of black and white - and how does it color the way we see Obama? The naive ideas coming out of Pan-Africanism are at the root of the confusion. When Pan-African ideas began to take shape in the 19th century, all black people, regardless of where in the world they lived, suffered and shared a common body of injustices. Europe, after all, had colonized much of the black world, and the United States had enslaved people of African descent for nearly 250 years.

Suffice it to say: This is no longer the case.”

Then he surmissed why Obama couldn’t really claim to be a real black.  “So when black Americans refer to Obama as “one of us,” I do not know what they are talking about. In his new book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama makes it clear that, while he has experienced some light versions of typical racial stereotypes, he cannot claim those problems as his own - nor has he lived the life of a black American.”

Crouch further makes the point of how Obama would have come in from a different door if he were to win the presidency, not with the blessing of authentic African-Americans.  Said he, “if he throws his hat in the ring, he will have to run as the son of a white woman and an African immigrant. If we then end up with him as our first black President, he will have come into the White House through a side door - which might, at this point, be the only one that’s open.” Such arrant nonsense!!

First of all, as one of the commentators pointed out in reply to Crouch’s article, “Crouch is an idiot.” Secondly, my grandmother used to say that people who are ugly behave in an ugly manner.  And so it is with Stanley Crouch.  Crouch is of course not the only black writer or leader who has been making this point of Barack Obama not being black enough because he is not a descendant of “plantation slave blacks.” Come to think of it, most of the so-called black leaders who have been leading the black community through the centuries have been blacks with white blood in their veins, even with greater percentage than Obama’s.

Stanley Crouch’s polluting article, reminds of an article in the June 24, 2004 New York Times, in which Profs Lani Gurnier and Henry Louis Gates questioned the wisdom of Harvard University and other Ivy league schools, admitting more children of West Indians and Africans than the children of “plantation slave blacks.” Here is what the article said, “While about 8 percent, or about 530, of Harvard’s undergraduates were black, Lani Guinier, a Harvard law professor, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of Harvard’s African and African-American studies department, pointed out that the majority of them — perhaps as many as two-thirds — were West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples.

“They said that only about a third of the students were from families in which all four grandparents were born in this country, descendants of slaves. Many argue that it was students like these, disadvantaged by the legacy of Jim Crow laws, segregation and decades of racism, poverty and inferior schools, who were intended as principal beneficiaries of affirmative action in university admissions.” Mind you, Guinier is the daughter of a Jewish mother, Eugenia Paprin, and the Jamaican-born scholar Ewart Guinier, who also served as Harvard professor (and chair) of the Afro-American Studies Department in 1969.  Just imagine her making this point!! Doesn’t it remind you of Justice Clarance Thomas?

In a few months, Americans would be going to the polls to nominate the presidential candidates for both parties.  Black Americans should not fall into the narcism of Republican apologists like Stanley Crouch and his co-horts about deciding why Barack Obam should be nominated based on whether he is a descendant of “plantation slave blacks” or that of the more encompassing African-American.  Their votes should be based on who should fulfill the aspirations of African-Americans.

Chika Onyeani is Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of the African Sun Times, author of the internationally acclaimed No.1 bestselling book, “Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success,” as well as the blockbuster novel, “The Broederbond Conspiracy.”

At the latter of 2005, I was weighing about 173-175 lbs.  Then my eye problem escalated (I have glaucoma, not only that but ‘dry eyes;), and every time I exercised, it seemed to worsen the great discomfort I felt.  So I started squatting, which helped to calm my nerves and reduce my blood pressure, but on the other hand, it increased my pot-belly.  While I was maintaining my weight, my stomach seemed to be popping up.  I was very concerned, and for a while I sort of stopped exercise.  The other exercise I was doing, laying on my back, (and pushing my feet under the couch), and pulling myself up was causing me to have urinal problem (I also have prostate problems - enlarged prostate).  So my weight steadily ballooned, and by the time we returned from our cruise vacation in August this year, I weighed myself and was horrified that I was 188 lbs.  Mind you, from the time we got into the ship, the first thing I did was go to the gym.  I was loosing 1000 calories a day, but when you are putting in about 3000 what do you expect?

On one of our short vacations two weeks ago, at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, I had such headache, and since I don’t believe in taking any of those kinds of medicine (like aspirin of which I am allergic or the tylenol that I some times take when it is really very bad), I decided that my best option was to start this war against my body.

Everyday, I have run in the morning since we came back, but I discovered that it didn’t really affect my problem much because I would run and devour a fair amount of food later, especially our African food, which is quite fattening.  Every morning when I wake up, I way myself, and I would groan at the fact that nothing much has changed. 

I changed my tactics some days ago, that is instead of just running in the morning (by the way I run in the house, not even on the Threadmill which is broken and I don’t want to buy another one, I also now run in the evening, the depending on when I had my last meal.

A MIRACLE

Well, this morning I feel rather elated, I weighed myself and I was 178 lbs.  At my height of 5’ 7 1/2”, I am supposed to weigh 156 lbs ideally, but I doubt that I could ever reach that, and moreover, I think it would be dangerous to my health, I would look like I am suffering from kwashiokor, well if don’t understand that word, it was used during the Biafra-Nigeria war, with starving children, their limbs showing from starvation.

Well, will I maintain this weight, that’s the question.  What I would like my ideal weight to be is 172 lbs. 

Yesterday, November 17th was the day we went to the bride’s family residence to hand over all the things they had listed for Abba to fulfill before her parents will agree to her marrying our son Abba.  Let’s just that at times the ‘negotiation’ was quite heated, but I am happy for the sake of the children that everything went well, and their traditional wedding is taking place on the 1st of December.  These children love each other, and it is their life and they have to control their lives.  As I said, I am happy everything has turned out to be agreed upon, and the wedding is about to take place. 

My granddaughter is beginning to talk.  I can clearly hear what she is saying and she is repeating some words in Igbo.  I am hoping that she would continue to listen in Igbo.  I know it is difficult for her, she doesn’t live with me so she doesn’t get to practice the language all the time.  And again, her other grandmother speaks Creole to her.  I am hoping this would be my greatest legacy to hear, the ability to hear and converse in Igbo, not being born in Nigeria or even visiting the country.  It would be a monumental success.  I am still looking for an illustrator to illustrate the manuscript for her children’s book I have already written.  Now it remains for me to write everything she needs to know about my village, culture and practices. 

I look forward to seeing Princess Ada next week.

Princess Ada at Halloween

Yesterday was my wife’s, Loretta’s, birthday.  I had come home very late this morning, having gone to pick up my own copies of the African Sun Times printed that evening for next Monday.  During our program on the radio, “StraightTalk with Chika Onyeani on the AllAfricaRadio, we played a very emotional song, “You are my African Queen,” wow, how appropriate, but she didn’t know that we played the song for her and talked about her birthday because she had gone to sleep.  After the broadcast, I went to Long Island City to collect the papers.  After the MDA, the distributor, one of the managers at the distribution center said his brother would like to talk with me about picking up the printed paper from the printers and delivering it to them as well as to another distributor.  I told him I would discuss with him next Friday.  You see how the Hispanics help their brothers get jobs.

It is now 1:56 and I thought I would get back to NJ at record time.  But there was heavy traffic at Kosciusko bridge, and there was heavy traffic also going into Holland Tunnel.  Didn’t get back until after 3am, and then I had to prepare the papers to give to Mayor.....  By the time I slept it was 4:45am.  I had to get up early, woke up at 10:15 for my 10:30 appointment with the Mayor.  I had just dressed when the door bell rang, and it was the Mayor.  After he left, I tried to go back to sleep, it seems I did, because I knew I dreamed about something, before getting up to get ready for Ron Daniels Diaspora event.  Abdoulaye called me to confirm the place, and I called Dabo to meet me there..  I am too sleepy, and I am going to bed right now, 1:44am

I waited all day for my granddaughter to call me, but she was at daycare.  Eventually, when I called she was the one who picked up the phone and said, “hi”.  Imagine my surprise hearing her say that.  Her second birthday was on November 1, and since her grandmother’s (my wife) is on Nov. 17, we are all going to be celebrating all the birthdays at one time.

Didn’t really do much yesterday, but we accomplished one thing: we bought the material to be presented to my son’s in-law on Saturday, when we present the total demand by Evelyn’s parents for her hand in marriage to my son, Abba.  If you see the list of demands, you would be amazed, but the negotiations were fun and we want to have a great event for our children.

My wife wanted to take me to dinner, but I said no.  We would have to celebrate all together.