This Is My Rifle: Obama & the Political Race Card

I keep writing, deleting and re-writing this piece all over again. There really is no way for me to find the right words to express my opinion on this matter without offending anybody. Fortunately for myself, I think this piece is only gonna piss off stupid people and I don’t give a fuck about stupid people so here it goes.

First off, I am in no way, shape or form a racist or prejudice against anybody for any reason whatsoever. All but one of the women I’ve dated in my 27 years on earth have been either Black or Latina, all of my closest friends are from a myriad of ethnic backgrounds and I’ve based my career firmly in what began as, and arguably still is, pre-dominantly Black culture. On top of all that, I’m North American Indian. So if anybody is aware of the evils of racial division, it’s me.

Now, let’s get this bad boy rolling.

Lately I’ve been silently observing the current political climate. Personally, I think the whole political system is a crock of shit. Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t really matter. They all serve the same purpose and provide the smoke screen that conceals the things that are really happening in our world. They debate back and forth, creating dramatic political theater and giving the news outlets a much needed break from their nightly fear mongering. At the end of the day, none of them give a fuck about you. Politicians make their living on making you, the little guy, believe that they’re out there fighting for your rights but in actuality they’re only interested in which lobbyist is paying the highest amount to pass a law that will ultimately fuck you over in some way.

Knowing all of this, I could care less about their policies. What I’ve been paying attention to is how race has been playing a major roll in politics now more than ever before.

Exactly 2 years ago, we all were witness to one of the biggest events in modern world history. The confederate flag wavin’, apple pie eatin’, good ol’ boy United States of America elected its first Black President.

The night Barack Obama was elected my best friend Ben and I got drunk until the early hours of the morning in celebration. Aside from having witnessed something that just a year prior was considered virtually impossible, we felt like we had won a major victory. Though neither one of us are Black (Ben is South American and I’m American Indian), we now had the belief that without question, if there’s a will there’s a way. Both of us at the time being extremely talented but severely underrated artists, there was a new electricity flowing through the world around us. If Barack could do it then we too could make it. Yes. We. Fuckin. Can.

As the weeks rolled by and Obama-mania started to die down, I began to reflect on the months before the election and conversations I had with various people. Most of the Obama supporters I spoke to, which is pretty much everybody I know, had little to no knowledge of his policies or his stance on the issues. They were voting for him for one reason; because he’s Black.

At the time, I was in the same boat. I believed in “Hope” and that a “Change” was very much needed. I thought about all of the Black men and women I knew who were in their senior years and had lived through incredible social injustices. I thought about all the Black single mothers I knew with fatherless sons that now had an undeniable male figure to look up to. They now could realistically say, “When I grow up, I wanna be President of The United States” without the feeling of never really being able to actually achieve that dream. Regardless of what Barack Obama did when he became president, he was and still is a modern day hero.

But now when I look back on that period of time, I also think of how misguided a lot of people were. To support anybody or anything, especially a presidential candidate, based solely on race is ridiculously dangerous. And then to make that person a celebrity and pressure other people into supporting them for the same reason is nothing short of insane.

To this day, Hip Hop culture embraces Barack Obama as if he’s one if us. Could you imagine what would’ve happened if a popular Hip Hop artist came out as a McCain supporter? That artist might as well have come out as a pedophile. At least then they’d have a slight chance in hell of a comeback.

If Barack Obama has some Jay-Z and Nas in his iPod, that’s great. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point in time Bill Clinton secretly had some Pac and Biggie stashed somewhere in the White House. So why is it that I keep reading quotes from President Obama about the type of music he listens to? Seriously, of all the things to ask him, we’re concerned with whether or not he listens to Hip Hop? Is it because he’s Black that the public thinks he’s “down”? Why did the press ask him his thoughts on the whole Kanye West/Taylor Swift incident? Is it because they were foaming at the mouth waiting for him to cut down another Black man?

The answer is yes.

You see, we like to pretend that racism is dead. White people can now say, “Hey, I’m not racist! I voted for Obama!” instead of the old, “I have a Black friend!” excuse. Black, Latin, Indian and every other shade of human can say, “You get a pass on that last slightly racist gesture because Obama is president”. But regardless of what we say or do, the underlying prejudices still exist for one simple reason; we refuse to move on.

Recently I had a conversation with a Black acquaintance about President Obama. When I pointed out that the president, like all other presidential candidates, didn’t hold up to a lot of his promises and proved to be more in the favor of Wall Street than the regular average American, he immediately became defensive. I could tell that his reaction was racially charged and had nothing to do with his political beliefs. He was taking what I was saying as a slight against all Black people. The reason for that being is that this university educated, intelligent young man, like most people in the world, still have a hard time separating race from individual people; and rightfully so.

To this day our society has a hard time with race. We’ve struggled with it forever and it seems like one of those situations where the more we try to clean it up, the messier it gets. So we avoid the conversation as much as possible. We know that the playing field is not and will never be even. One group is always fighting to out do the other. Due to White guilt, I find that a lot of the time White people have the “well they’ve had it tough” attitude when it comes to other races. But isn’t that just another form of prejudice? Isn’t it basically saying that you know you’re better but because another group of people haven’t had it as easy you’re gonna let them have their moment? Maybe I’m crazy, but shouldn’t we judge people based on their abilities and let the best man win?

Here are 2 facts:

Barack Obama is Black.
Barack Obama is a politician.

Please believe me when I tell you, Barack Obama plays the same game that all politicians before him played. Black or White, it doesn’t matter. All politicians do the same exact things. It’s a cutthroat, snake infested, corrupt system and you have to be willing to lie, cheat and steal if you’re going to exist within it. The mistake that we all make is not being able to separate race from politics. We still have all the fears, frustrations and prejudices that we always did. What we need to focus on is asking ourselves why we’re afraid to approach these issues and finally put them to rest. Included in that, we need to ask ourselves the tough questions and find a common ground. The problem is no longer external, it’s an internal one and we have to individually look within ourselves and face those demons.

I don’t believe in politics, I believe in people. We can’t expect any president, no matter what race he belongs to, to fix something that’s so deeply seeded in our consciousness. It’s up to us to come together and make this thing work.

And on a side note, if anybody wants leaves me a “you’re a racist” comment or sends me a “you’re a terrorist” email, just know that you’re proving my point. If you wanna bring race into it, I have only one thing to say:

I was here first so get the fuck off my land.

(Jason James is an artist, freelance columnist and writer for RefinedHype.com. You can listen/download his most recent album, "Marvelous World Of Color", here and you can contact him here and here.)