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Oybama
© 2008 by H.B. Koplowitz
Dear Mom and Dad,
I really wouldn't vote for Hitler, as you suggested, when I suggested
you cut Barack Obama some slack for the comments his pastor made, and
for Obama's subsequent speech on race.
I was surprised by your Hitler remark, and at first attributed it to
too much watching of Fox News from your retirement condo in Boca. I
mean, ever since Mom accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan, helping Bush
steal the election, and Bush invaded Iraq and he and the Republicans
did a lot of other crazy stuff, you have both been saying there was no
way you could vote for a Republican this time around.
Then, Obama's pastor says "God damn America," and you say if Obama is
the Democratic nominee, you'll vote for Republican John McCain. This
really scared me, because I consider you typical ... average ... normal
... regular ... how about "representative" of white, middle class
America, which means millions more white, middle class Americans
probably feel the same. Wha' happened? And then it hit me. I remember
those vibes. You're having a '60s flashback.
This isn't about race, it's about respect -- what you and this country
didn't get much of when I was one of those long-haired, dope-addled,
anti-establishment, draft-dodging, peace-love hippies. You think Obama
is a hippie because he wouldn't disown the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who
said God damn America, and he called his grandma typical. Or something
like that.
It's OK. Just as Obama talked about how he has come to accept both his
pastor, who comes from a generation of angry black men, and angry white
men who feel cheated by affirmative action, I have come to accept --
and respect -- a generation of angry parents who felt their children
were damaged by drugs, cults and anti-American ideology.
Even though you eventually came to agree with me that maybe Vietnam
wasn't such a good idea, just as I eventually came to agree with you
that some of the
hippie-dippy-psychedelic-free-love-revolution-for-the-hell-of-it may
have been a little over the top, I know you grew up during World War
II, and that it's hard for you to view America as an oppressor of
anyone. You also grew up during the Holocaust and can remember the
birth of Israel, and it didn't help that the Rev. Wright said some less
than sympathetic things about the Jewish state, and sympathizes with
the Palestinians as an oppressed people.
But here's the thing. Barack Obama isn't an angry black man. He's not
an anti-Semite and he's not a hippie. He's not a part of your
generation and he's not a part of mine, and he comes with neither
generation's baggage. Rather, he is what America is becoming, which is,
in a name, Tiger Woods. The Tiger Woods of politics. He's the natural
progression of integration, immigration, and assimilation, which is
miscegenation. Halfrican, whiteno, amerasian and blackspanic, we don't
even have official words yet for what America is becoming, but it's
coming. As one of your least favorite folksingers used to say, the
times they are a changin'.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that Obama may not be one of us, but
he's not one of them, either. Obama and Clinton agree on most of the
issues, and one thing you and I can agree on is that either would be a
change from Bush and the Republicans, while McCain, not so much. I hope
you can forgive Obama for some of the company he has kept, just as you
forgave me.
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