A Thank You Message From Senator Obama

Today, I was honored and priviledged to be part of a conference call for the National Leadership Team for Women for Obama.

The Leadership Team consists of a select group of women from around the country who have demonstrated through their work in the campaign, leadership qualities in the area of organizing and getting the word out. I am humbled to have been included amongst these women early in the campaign.

The clip below includes the audio from the phone call, during which the Senator (along with Becky Carroll, National Director of Women for Obama) thanked the Leadership Team for our work, and encouraged us to stay focused as we head into the primary season and beyond:

Fired up? Ready to go?

‘Tis The Season To Do Things Differently

By Patricia Wilson-Smith
 
If you’re like me, you likely ask yourself the same goofy question every year – “Is it me or have the Holidays come around earlier than usual this year?”
 
It’s not you, and it’s not me. The fact is, anxious retailers are surreptitiously planting seeds of holiday cheer into our psyches earlier and earlier with each year that passes. If our greedy merchant friends have their way, before long, we’ll all be decorating for the holidays the day after Memorial Day.
 
But finding new ways to separate us from our money is the capitalist way; free enterprise and all that. Just like zeroing out our credit card balances only to sucker punch them again, holding lavish holiday feasts, and buying gifts for people we barely speak to all year are all part of our annual national psychosis. If you’re like me, you too have fallen victim to this mindless trap year-after-year. You’re powerless. Resistance has become futile.
 
Not to say that the holidays are not a special time. Any opportunity to spread good will and eat until you’re catatonic can never be underrated. Still, for me anyway, this year is different. This year for perhaps the first time, I am feeling an overwhelming need to give to someone who doesn’t already have an extensive CD collection, or buy for someone who’s not distressed over their need for a wall-mount kit for the new 50 inch flat screen TV they just bought for themselves. This year, before I dust off the plastic and head out to the mall, I’ve decided to take a look around – and I mean a very long hard look around to see what else needs my attention.
 
I could start on the continent of Africa on the western Sudan in the Darfur region.  Since 2003, the Sudanese government has been providing arms and assistance to militia groups who are committing genocidal acts in numbers that have been estimated between 50,000 to 450,000, though most experts believe the number of the murdered to be on the higher end of the range. Almost as bad, more than 2.5 million people are believed to have been displaced. Whatever the politics, whoever the aggressors, there are hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who are in need of help – people who are suffering that couldn’t give a crap about when the Macy’s one-day sale starts.
 
Or I could head down to New Orleans. Or more accurately to the place that used to be the thriving multi-cultural land of music and fine cuisine. There I’d find the abandoned homes and shattered lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, some who struggled in poverty even before Katrina, and who now, having been virtually abandoned by relief efforts, and having lost everything in the disaster, are actually being told by their insurance companies that while flood damage is covered by their home owner’s policies, the breaking of the levees that ultimately caused the devastating flooding is not. Those people don’t give a hoot about when the new Sony Play Station 3 is going on sale.
 
Or maybe I could take a leisurely stroll through the streets of downtown. I could have a sit down with a few of the thousands of homeless people who live on my city’s streets. People from all ethnicities and walks of life, who are facing down the prospect of another cold winter without a roof over their heads. I could have a pointed conversation with the city leaders who in their flaccid attempts to breathe life back into some areas of the city, sweep the needy and the destitute under the proverbial rug to make the city look ‘better’. I could wait for one of these clowns to walk by me, stick my foot out, and watch them fall flat onto their over-stuffed faces. The people they step over everyday couldn’t care less about this city’s image.
 
The problem with us and the ease in which we give in to our banal holiday pleasures is that it leaves us scant little time to remember those people who have suffered all year in silence, who needed for us to see them all year when we would not, and who, during this most blessed season should expect nothing less than that we will open our eyes, our hearts and our coffers if only to help make a few of their days during the season of giving a little more bright. The problem is, the holiday decorations in October, the pre-Thanksgiving-day-Christmas sales, the office parties, the half-hearted gift-giving, takes us away from the activities, rituals, and just plain simple kindnesses that should serve to help us remember why we do it all in the first place. I would submit that there is much besides the normal Yule tide distractions that need our attention.
 
To make a difference this holiday season, consider making a donation to one of the many fine organizations created to aid victims of the genocide in Darfur and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, organizations like “Help Darfur Now” at http://www.helpdarfurnow.org, or the joint initiative between former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush to benefit the Katrina relief fund, whose website can be found by going to http://www.bushclintonkatrinafund.org. You can of course also help by calling your local Red Cross and donating to the cause of your choice.

This year, let’s do something different. Before we spend one thin dime on a video game, or deck a single hall with holly (what the hell is a ‘bough’ anyway?), let’s all find someone, anyone who needs a hand, a leg up, a small kindness, and give it to them. If just for one day we all chose charity over opulence, sharing over mindless consumption, and giving to those in need before giving to those who don’t, well, it would just make having Christmas trees show up in our neighborhood drugstores in October a little more palatable. That’s all I’m saying.

One Historic Day in South Carolina…

By Patricia Wilson-Smith

It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon. The sky was brilliant blue, and the only way you knew it was December that day was because, well, you just knew.

I waited around for my assignment outside of Columbia’s Williams-Brice Stadium along with the rest of the volunteers from Atlanta that had rode on the van I had commandeered on behalf of the campaign. The truth of the matter was, it didn’t matter to us what we did to help; we were there to be part of history.

The campaign had been forced to move the event that some were calling “The Big O” from it’s original location to the huge college football stadium after tickets for the original venue were scarfed up after only three days. It was clear to most that South Carolina planned to come out in huge numbers to see a famous talk show host named ’O’ , but that they would also be there to find out more about Senator Barack Obama and what he’s all about. 

And that was amazing enough, you see – if you know like me and a lot of other volunteers in South Carolina know, you know that not so long ago, not very many ordinary people in The Great State even knew who Senator Obama was, let alone that he was running for President.  It would take campaign offices and personnel,  stationed strategically all around the state, working side by side with volunteers from neighboring states, all tirelessly stumping to get the word out about the Senator to make the difference. And on that exhilarating day, on the 9th of December, all the work of those faithful foot soldiers had paid off.

There were thousands upon thousands of people, lined up around the block long before doors were due to open, there to witness what would turn out to be an historic event – the day that Oprah Winfrey, a cultural icon who until then had never formally endorsed a political candidate, had came to speak to South Carolinians about why she had chosen to break her self-imposed political silence for Barack Obama, and noone else.

Amazingly, since Oprah has been out on the road with Obama, some of her ‘devoted’ fans have taken to castigating her on her website. She’s suddenly being accused of ‘playing where she doesn’t belong’, and ‘forcing her political will down the throats of her fans’. Those who make these baseless accusations do so mainly because they have somehow come to believe that the only reason Oprah has chosen to back Barack Obama is because he’s black. Incredible.

Only those who refuse to see the deeper meaning in an Obama presidency would cheapen what Oprah did that day in Columbia and before in Iowa by saying that she’s only endorsing Senator Obama because he’s black; Not only does such an inference cheapen the importance of that day, but it also belittles the work that Senator Obama has done, the man that he is, and the President that he is destined to become. It also says some pretty unfair things about Oprah Winfrey herself.

The most prevailing quandry created by the Obama candidacy is the dichotomy it exposes regarding race relations in America. I’ve said many times in this forum that as a black woman, I have repeatedly been accused of supporting the Senator because he’s black; I’ve heard other blacks criticized for not supporting the Senator even though he’s black. It’s positively mind boggling - at the same time, Senator Obama has been called ‘not black enough’ to win the support of African Americans, and ‘not electable’ in the eyes of mainstream America. His bi-racial heritage has been criticized as proof that he could not possibly understand the African American condition, and held up as proof that he alone is uniquely qualified to understand the changing face of America and our place in the world.

Even our black leaders dare to rob him of his ‘blackness’ in favor of a man who is not black, was not the ‘First Black President’, could never be black, and who only garners the ridicuous comparisons to black Americans because he’s been so vilified by what most consider his unacceptable behavior in the White House. No need to say his name.

And so a man like Senator Obama who has by his ability to unify across racial and political lines in his campaign, already proven that we have made truly historic gains in race relations in this country, has also by doing so, shone a bright and blinding light on how far we have yet to go. 

So what then, of the over 30,000 mostly African Americans, who stood patiently in lines that snaked around the stadium to see the most famous black woman in history, talk about the only African American in history who has a real shot at becoming the leader of the free world?

I thought of them all as I stood a few feet from the stage and surveyed the assembled croud; they sat mesmerized as first Michelle Obama, then Oprah Winfrey, and then Senator Obama himself offered words of hope for the nation and the outcome of the election. I smiled at the sea of faces, as Senator Obama painted a vivid picture of what the future could hold for our country, if we dared to believe.  And before long, I began to realize that because of Senator Obama’s strength, because of he and Michelle’s ability to push past the naysayers, the race-baiters, and the discouragers, what I was witnessing was a true and earnest turning point for South Carolina and for America.  I was witnessing the dawn of a new era of politics that if allowed to take root, would once again respect and uphold the idea of government for the people and by the people, and that if allowed to flourish would uplift and include instead of tear down and exclude.

Just like everyone else in the stadium that day, I was there to hear the man whom I believe is truly the only one who has the vision, the strength of character, and the sound judgement to be the next President of the United States. But I also noted with pride that in some way, I had played a small part in helping to get those people to that place, with my phone calls, my endless blogging, and my crowd control skills . I had been part of an amazing team that day that through our collective belief in the audacity of hope, had helped to make that day possible. 

So as I stood mere inches from Senator Obama and Oprah Winfrey as they enthusiastically shook the hands of those in the crowd, all I could think was, “How cool is this?”.  And “God Bless America”.

Obama Supporters – Re-Energize!

By Brenda K. Johnson

As we work diligently to fulfill the responsibilities of our daily lives, we must remain committed to ensuring Barack Obama is the next President of the United States. We must visualize the image of him standing at the Capitol taking his oath of office. Utilize this image to remind yourself of the importance of your single voice. Retrieve this image when your campaigning is beginning to affect your normal routine.
 
Or maybe…You already know your second pick for President. 

Perhaps you heard media reports that somehow, in less than a month, Hillary has doubled her lead over Obama.  Even though you remind yourself this is the same media who took the liberty of calling the 2004 Presidential Election before Florida voting was complete, you figure those polls MUST be accurate.
 
Or maybe you saw that Hillary’s 3rd quarter fundraising surpassed Obama’s. Perhaps you choose to ignore the fact that Obama supporters represent the average American citizen, and Hillary’s represent big money interests – the same big money interests that have become the fourth branch of government in Washington.  Perhaps you choose to ignore that the Obama campaign has received a higher number of individual small amount repeated donations, signifying that the poorest and least powerful Americans find a voice in him.
 
Maybe – you can see yourself supporting Hillary Clinton for President. Maybe you can get past the fact that her loyalty is to winning, and not to the American people. That the consequences of her winning often come with negative consequences to the poor and powerless.  Perhaps you can accept that she voted for a war that has exceeded $458 Billion; a war that the world asked us not to fight until there was evidence of weapons of mass destruction; a war that was ill-conceived and consistently mismanaged.  With Washington paralyzed by inaction due to politics as usual, does Hillary have the ability to unify Congress to pass any legislation at all?  Or will her Presidency be a continuance of exactly what we have now, but with a different color uniform at the helm?  Is it possible that Hillary’s big money donors might come knocking at her door once she is in the Oval office?? Maybe you can get past these issues and support Hillary Clinton. I cannot.
 
Maybe – you can see yourself supporting John Edwards for President. Maybe you are a person who supports Obama because of his skin color – and at the same time you believe American is not ready for a black or female President.  Maybe you can forget those before us who committed their lives to fight for suffrage and civil rights. Maybe you forget that whites and blacks, males and females all died in support of a person being judged by their character and ability instead of their skin color or gender. So it becomes easy for you to see yourself supporting Edwards.  Well, I cannot. Not only does John Edwards’ inability to raise money speak volumes about his lack of grassroots support, but he now has decided his campaign will accept public money – a belief he rejected just months ago. I recognize the risk of a grossly underfunded Democratic Presidential campaign, and I am not willing to sign over another 4 years to a Republican President because we all concur that the white man has the best chance of success.
 
If you have your second pick for President already – then stop reading this.

But, if you are like me, and you know that Barack Obama is the only candidate for President of the United States in either party who can achieve the vision for America that we believe in, then RE-ENERGIZE yourself!  Know that your single voice, is more powerful that any backdoor lobbyist with millions to contribute. Know that the Obama supporters will grow exponentially, one person at a time talking to one person at a time. Know that Obama expects US to be the agents of change because he cannot do it alone. 

We need YOU! The country needs YOU! The world needs YOU!

The Haterade Syndrome

By Khesha Duncan 

I’m SOOOOOOOO heated right now – still, after reading an article in the Redding News Review a couple days ago, titled “Andrew Young explains why he is not supporting Obama,” forwarded to me by one of my many fellow Obama-ers.  So heated, in fact, I’ve just decided to coin a new phrase called “The Haterade Syndrome!” 

For quite awhile now, I have been trying my absolute best to ignore the comments that I’ve been reading and hearing throughout the campaign, from some members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other current black leaders with their assortment of old school reasons for why Senator Barack Obama can’t be President of the United States – yet. 

But what I read this week takes the cake, and is a sad commentary indeed, because Andrew Young has opted to join them.  Young’s ignorant remarks in this piece sound more like those of a high school dropout than a Howard University graduate, saying that Barack can’t be President now because,

“You have to have a protective network around you… Leadership requires suffering. And I would like to see Barack’s children get a little older, see, because they’re going to pick on them.” 

Is he serious?  This from a man who has a Bachelor of Divinity Degree From Hartford Seminary, in Hartford, Connecticut, and is a former Executive Director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)?  One would want to believe that this combination of education and professional Christianity would give him more depth in his faith than that, but apparently not. 

Granted, I recognize that Mr. Young was one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest protégés and allies, and that he was there (literally) when Dr. King was tragically assassinated.  Nor can I even begin to imagine what it must have felt like, witnessing the murder of his friend, or the significance of its impact on his life from that point on.  And what I’m saying here is not intended to, nor could it, ever minimize any of that. However, to fast forward almost forty years later, and say that Barack Obama can’t be President today because they’re going to pick on his children suggests that he may be living in a time warp.  What Andrew Young seems to be forgetting is that the same concerns and apprehensions he has about Senator Obama running for President in 2007 are the same ones that leaders before him had of he and Dr. King during their civil rights endeavors.  In the 1950s and 60s when the fight was about more basic human freedoms, like being able to enter buildings through the front doors, and sitting in the front seats of city buses, and the right not to be hung from a tree just because you were black, Young and others responded with marches, boycotts, demonstrations, lunch counter sit-ins en masse, and the like – all very appropriate actions for what was happening then.  Their strategies yielded positive results that benefited the collective whole at that time and for the next generation – Barack Obama’s generation. 

But some MAJOR progress has been made since then.  The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, integration occurred, and affirmative action was implemented in the early 70s.  The game changed, and it was no longer about where you could shop, eat or use the bathroom.  The questions then became about where we could work, attend college, what neighborhood we could live in, if we could get a bank loan, or run for public office.  And as the doors opened and we walked in, over the course of the next twenty years black folks accomplished, excelled and achieved in all these areas.  Here, it appears, is where the problems with black leadership, and more importantly, the disintegration of black unity began, that we are experiencing today.   

Which brings us to Mr. Young’s next series of comments:

“Barack Obama does not have the support network yet to get to be president.  To put a brother in there by himself is to set him up for crucifixion.” 

Additionally, he said that Hillary Clinton is surrounded by quite a few black advisors while Obama has very few.  Well guess what?  He wouldn’t be by himself if Young and other so-called longtime black leaders would form the support network Young says he doesn’t have.  Here’s an idea.  Instead of droning on and on about why Senator Obama can’t win the Presidency now, why doesn’t he call him up and ask what he can do to assist with his campaign efforts to ensure that he does?  I’ll tell you why; drinkin’ too much haterade!  Sounds juvenile, I know, but I can’t think of another reason why Andrew Young, with his years of experience in the civil rights movement, having been attacked and jailed after protesting for this very right, of a black man to be able to run for President, wouldn’t want to do all he can to help Senator Obama.  After all, whether the playa haters want to acknowledge it or not, there is absolutely no denying that Barack Obama is the most viable African-American candidate this country has ever seen, perhaps with the exception of Dr. King.  But Dr. King wasn’t sent to us to run for President.  His time spent here was meant to serve a different purpose, to move us forward to the next step.  And the one thing we can deduce about history and progress of any kind is best stated in the old adage, “timing is everything.”

Without a doubt, Senator Obama’s time is now.  Barack Obama is currently the ONLY black member of the Senate.  It is important to note that he shares this honor with a very short list of only five in our history; the first, Hiram Rhodes Revels, was elected way back in 1870.  However, this is just his most recent outstanding accomplishment.  Barack Obama has been on this prestigious path since his career’s inception.  A graduate of Columbia University, he took a job in south-side Chicago as a community organizer after just one year of working in corporate America.  This public service experience compelled him to Harvard Law School.  There, in 1990, he was elected the Harvard Law Review’s first black president ever in its entire 104-year history! 

So, when the question is asked, “Is America ready for a black President?” I would contend that, given this historical accomplishment, the question has already been answered with a resounding YES!  Upon earning his law degree from an Ivy League School (magna cum laude, I might add), Barack Obama could have easily returned to corporate America to enjoy a huge salary with lots of company perks.  Instead, he chose to return to Chicago’s south-side to lead voter registration drives and practice civil rights law.  Then after three years of representing discrimination claims, community organizers, and voting rights cases, he went back into the classroom, this time as a teacher.  He was a lecturer and constitutional law scholar at the University of Chicago Law School until his decision to run for the U.S. Senate in 2003. 

Andrew Young’s candid non-support of Senator Obama is particularly ironic to me because there are several pointed similarities between them.  For example, as a civil rights activist in the early 1960s, Young played a key role in the conflicts in Birmingham, Alabama, serving as a mediator between the black and white communities.  Obama has the same talent and track record for mediating effectively between the Democratic and Republican parties as the Senator of Illinois.  In 1970, Andrew Young lost his first race for Congress, but ran again in 1972 and won that race plus two more.  Likewise, Obama had an unsuccessful first run in a House of Representatives race before being reelected to the Senate twice more. 

During Young’s three terms in Congress he was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and was involved in several debates regarding foreign relations, including the decision to stop supporting Portuguese attempts to keep their colonies in South Africa.  His effective skills in this area were a major factor in President Jimmy Carter’s decision to appoint Young as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in 1977.  His greatest contributions in this critical role were helping to end segregation in Zimbabwe, Rhodesia, and improved U.S. relations with Nigeria.  Senator Obama is also a Congressional Black Caucus Member, and serves as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, traveling extensively to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and South Africa, addressing the issues of global terrorism, genocide in Sudan, and current and post-policies regarding the war in Iraq.  

When Andrew Young was Mayor of Atlanta from 1982-1990, he gained national notoriety for the city by encouraging international investment, which improved the Atlanta economy after it was hit hard by recession.  In his book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Senator Obama proposes a series of initiatives similar to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Programs implemented during his Presidency after the Great Depression of the 1930s, as a strategy for how we can begin to restore America economically after the Bush Administration vacates. 

So, to hear Mr. Young make statements like that about a candidate whose plethora of qualifications mirror so many of his own, is all the more puzzling and disturbing — especially at an event held IN Atlanta, birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement.  If we can’t count on the black leadership in Atlanta, dubbed The Black Mecca, to support Barack Obama, the wrong precedent gets set, and gives the rest of us very little to hope for in the way of support for him across the rest of Black America.  

Finally, it is difficult and painful to even dignify Young’s last remark with a response:

“Bill is every bit as black as Barack,” he said. “He has probably gone out with more black women than Barack.”

First of all, what the hell does dating black women have to do with running the country effectively?!?  Aside from the notion that if, in fact, Bill did date black women that’s probably who he learned most of his leadership game from (especially how to balance a budget), pretty much absolutely nothing!  It really doesn’t matter anyway because the bottom line is, if and when Bill Clinton was done dating the sistas, he quickly returned home to one of his own when it was time to choose a wife.  That’s just what we need, a black man in Andrew Young’s position bragging about how his white homey friend has probably dated more black women than a real brotha, and issuing him a “black card” with a lifetime membership as a reward to boot!  Mr. Young stated that leadership requires suffering.  I think his comments made here have taken care of a substantial amount of that already, don’t you?  Far more importantly, though, is that Bill Clinton isn’t even Senator Obama’s opponent.  However, Hillary Clinton is; yet, Young failed to share any of his assumptions about her dating history, regarding race or gender.  

Let’s just hope, though, that with any luck — and a lot of prayer, Andrew Young’s foolish remarks won’t take root with the masses.  Let’s hope that the majority of Black Americans are more evolved than we thought, and that we’re intelligent enough to realize that the diversity and uniqueness of Senator Obama’s background and upbringing are just two of many reasons why he’s exactly the perfect candidate who can take us to the next level in 2008.

For those of us who do get it, who have had to assimilate and adapt, whether we like to think about it or not, in order to survive in our predominantly white workplaces, and still remain committed to the cause that made affirmative action necessary in the first place, we have to challenge and educate the rest.  We have to teach others that while Andrew Young was making economic breakthroughs as the Mayor of Atlanta, GA, Barack Obama was at Harvard Law School making record-breaking history as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.  And how every action he has taken from his undergraduate college career to date has prepared him to become the next great black leader of our time. 

I am so proud to be a Barack Obama supporter.  My #1 reason for supporting him is that I sincerely believe he is the most qualified person for the job.  However, I am also fully aware of what his Presidential candidacy represents for me, black people, and every other member of an ethnic or minority group.  With respect to where we’ve been, how far we’ve come, and how very far we still have to go, Senator Obama really is the chosen one.  The fact that he’s black is a bonus, and yes, it does make me even more proud.
Some unsolicited advice for Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and all of the other black leaders who haven’t given Senator Barack Obama the respect and/or support he deserves – stop being part of the problem and become part of his solution!  By not standing together, black people continue to lose, and we have lost way too much already, of which we’re constantly reminded with overwhelming statistics about our continued spiral downward in every area of life by which success is measured. 
Because when Senator Obama becomes President Obama (and he will become President), remember whose support and approval you’re going to need to advance your next agenda.  In the meantime think about this:  when you talk to the press about the Billary duo, or the powerful Clinton machine as if they’re running a Presidential candidate team, the real message you’re sending to everyone is that it takes two Clintons to beat one Obama!  And that, my friends, deserves a tall glass of haterade! 

Peace ya’ll!

-Khesha Duncan