Yesterday morning, my boy Iz tweeted me on the strange vibe he was getting from white folks. I was still in my pajamas at the time as I am now. But when I finally got out and about yesterday, the vibe was alive.
As one of those people who really didn't care whether OJ was guilty or not - in fact, I honestly can't remember if I took his side or not and the parallel didn't enter my mind until this very second - it was just another day for me. And yet people seemed determined to hip me to something on their minds.
The other thing I recall right now from my honking trip Tuesday through the hood, was how I felt when I was in New York the weekend of the LA Riots. The moment that the not-guilty verdict flashed over the TV screen I found myself walking alone in the dead of night in Brooklyn thinking about my brotherhood with every black person at that moment, and yet there were no other blacks to be seen on the streets. It was all just a powerful vibration, unexpressed and probably unexpressable. As a writer, I had to transcribe the feeling into text. What came out was an essay I called 'White Flight Friday'. And even now as I reflect on those memories, they seem out of context and out of time. Some things are just never fully communicated. Perhaps community is only something you feel.
On yesterday's occasion there was a parking attendant to remind me that I was the third well-dressed black man he had encountered in rapid succession. I couldn't really understand much he was saying through his accent other than '3 black guys', and 'black president'. I mumbled a reply like "I guess so", being somewhat caught off guard and distracted with other matters.
As I was thirty minutes early for my appointment in West LA, I sat in the bright modern lobby on the first floor of a building full of dot com companies. I whipped out the Treo and began to read some of the flames from that mornings blogging. "Aren't you the gentleman who.., no I'm sorry". People were breaching my space arbitrarily. This is not altogether disconcerting, but I'm noticing it, the lift in their eyes and the expectation. I could tell that people were looking at me slightly differently. Like..there's one of them Obama blacks. Suit, tie, erudition, wedding ring... Who knows? I'm projecting. It's a vibe.
After the relatively successful meeting, I headed back to other haunts. Since I was in a happy mood anyway extending from the knowledge that I'm finding more business here in LA and the generally bouyant mood I continue from not having to hear people fighting about who the next President is going to be, I decided to get a hand car wash. As the guys took care of that business I went to one of my favorite cigar shops and picked up a new Calibri and a magnum Montecristo. I pressed back into the leather couch and watched 45 minutes of The Situation Room, which was truly awful. I realized how out of touch I must be to the set of folks who depend on CNN for their news. And yet I remember when I used to think that Wolf Blitzer was, by far, the smartest journalist in America. Maybe America hasn't changed much at all, but I have. I blew smoke rings with relish and then blew them away in disgust as Blitzer congratulated himself on having the highest ratings on election night, due in part to this new 'beam me up' technology. And so I watch the goofy mug of Will I Am as he stands in a circular green screen studio with 40 cameras watching his every move - except of course the kind that crucified Joe the Plumber. He prepares to be holographed into perpetuity. Help us Obama wan Kenobi, you're our only hope.
Not long ago I wrote What's Your Excuse documenting what I called the Obama Effect. I said nothing changes, but attitude changes. And if I believe what I tell my own children, then attitude is everything. It determines what you're going to get and where you focus your energies. I can tell that a lot of attitude is changing in America, I can feel the new vibe. It's nothing more or less powerful than the OJ vibe or the LA Riot vibe - it's definitely a cultural sensation along similar lines of race and class, but it's more like a Cosby Show vibe, except that the disbelief is gone. This is a time in America when personal spaces are breached for the sake of making some kind of new communication which is essentially unexpressable. I'm a better writer now than I was in 92 so I'll try to express it - this changing attitude. Which means that I'm going to have to speak to people (ick).
Here are the dimensions of race which are ironically stuck. On the one hand, in the same context as the end of 50 page book radical black political cosmic slop that has passed for leadership, there's now a real standup guy in the spotlight.
A lot of shiny happy Republicans have decided that now is the time to celebrate the fact that Barack Obama has a winning style and can talk seriously about basic family values. They are sanguine about the possibilities that Obama can be once and for all the absolute positive role model for everyone. As Eddie Murphy once said, Can a black man can have a suitcase? Yes. This is what I call the Obama Effect, the idea that the success of Barack Obama marks an era of positivity for blackfolks, ie translates into posistive gain by racial affiliation.
On the other hand, nothing about what Obama *is* changes the basic race hustle in America. In that regard, he's just another Cosby. Shelby Steele nails it. Because no matter what the attitude.. well:
"There is nothing to suggest that Obama will lead America into true post-racialism. His campaign style revealed a tweaker of the status quo, not a revolutionary. Culturally and racially, he is likely to leave America pretty much where he found her. But what about black Americans? Won't an Obama presidency at last lead us across a centuries-old gulf of alienation into the recognition that America really is our country? Might this milestone not infuse black America with a new American nationalism? And wouldn't this be revolutionary in itself? Like most Americans, I would love to see an Obama presidency nudge things in this direction. But the larger reality is the profound disparity between black and white Americans that will persist even under the glow of an Obama presidency. The black illegitimacy rate remains at 70%. Blacks did worse on the SAT in 2000 than in 1990. Fifty-five percent of all federal prisoners are black, though we are only 13% of the population. The academic achievement gap between blacks and whites persists even for the black middle class. All this disparity will continue to accuse blacks of inferiority and whites of racism -- thus refueling our racial politics -- despite the level of melanin in the president's skin. The torture of racial conflict in America periodically spits up a new faith that idealism can help us 'overcome' -- America's favorite racial word. If we can just have the right inspiration, a heroic role model, a symbolism of hope, a new sense of possibility. It is an American cultural habit to endure our racial tensions by periodically alighting on little islands of fresh hope and idealism. But true reform, like the civil rights victories of the '60s, never happens until people become exhausted with their suffering. Then they don't care who the president is. Presidents follow the culture; they don't lead it. I hope for a competent president."
Obama got what he wanted. Did you get what you wanted? The new vibe is respect for the Obama Type which is the Cosby Type which is the same type it ever was, rooted in traditional American family values and everything the Old School is, was and ever shall be about. Just a new wave of 'Hey, aint' this cool?' Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and the grand old flag.
I may be projecting - I haven't been stopping and asking and listening to what is really on people's minds as they break my personal space. But I'm going to start and I'm going to see what the Obama Effect really is, what this new vibe is really trying to communicate, what this attitude might be. I don't expect that there will be any focus of energies, a change of attitude doesn't necessarily mean a change in direction or ambition. We'll see.
What do you think the new attitude is? What does it mean?
Recent Comments