President Barack Obama is coming to Oakland tomorrow, Monday, for a rally at The Fox Theater at 4:30 PM PDT. That means much of Downtown Oakland will be jam packed with people hoping to catch a look at the President, and by this blogger who’s going to catch vlogs of the people hoping to catch a look at the President.
I expected to be out of town, so I didn’t sign up and pay to attend the rally. Also, I have to admit to a sneering distain for the social-climbing over each other that goes on with those trying to get into events like this. My issue with this kind of behavior goes back to 1996, and President Bill Clinton’s visit to Oakland. I was Elihu Harris’ Economic Advisor, and fully expect to attend the private gathering to meet President Clinton, but then Harris’ Chief of Staff started playing games with who got to attend, and so rather than make an issue of her game, I backed out of it entirely.
I figured then that the way my life was working, I could engineer my own way to meet Presidents – or candidates for President. Fast forward to 2007, and my first meeting with then-Senator Barack Obama at The Mark Hopkins. I’ve met Barack several times, and now have family members who knew him when he was a community organizer in Chicago. Check out this video:
So now I’m more interested in advancing the need to re-elected Barack Obama as President Of The United States. Getting him a second term will give him the room to make changes that the GOP stopped him from making during his first term.
I’m not in support of protesting President Obama. Some of the people who do protest have admitted to me that they back Mitt Romney, but don’t offer concrete reasons. Since some of them are Black, I’d have to wonder if they just can’t stomach seeing someone Black as the most powerful person in the free World. Others who are Black and do this, do it as much for attention as anything else. They feel the best way to affirm their place is by pissing off someone else who’s Black in this way. It’s the product of an immature mind contaminated by one too many negative Black images in media, and surrounded by Whites, and losing themselves in the process: to that person the best way to gain White friends is to say they’re ‘not Black.’
Yes, it hurts to read that, but as I approach 50, I can’t ignore what I’ve seen in life. I have to share it.
Stay tuned.
Bill Carroll