Jan
20
UPDATE: Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States. I wish him all the best.
Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States at 7pm today (local time). There’s coverage of the events all over the Internet, so pick your place and enjoy this day of hope. Tomorrow the hard work begins…
What are you doing today ?
Where are you celebrating (if you’re celebrating) ?
What’s on your mind ?
i’m celebrating with an inauguration day picture voting contest… come on over and hit the image of your choice.
(well… you asked, didn’t you?)
LESS THAN ONE HOUR TO GO !!!
I am finding the whole day so moving. I’ll be in tears before it ends…
It was a great speech, full of hope, inspiration and positivity.
Unfortunately, some of my UK acquaintances who watched the inauguration with me, didn’t like the speech. They cited spurious and suspect reasons for not liking it. They said it lacked “substance” and Obama didn’t give “details” about how he will go about achieving all his objectives.
I told them that it’s impossible to give a detaiiled manifesto in a fifteen-minute speech (none of the 43 previous American Presidents have given a detailed speech), and the inauguration speech is supposed to rally the country and inspire the nation and lift the nation, which Obama did.
Unfortunately, alot of the Brits in the UK i speak to, are obsessed with attacking Obama and are almost willing him to fail.
I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the people criticising Obama when he hasn’t even been in the job for a few days, smacks of racism.
Many white Brits (and Americans) try to find fault with the first black US President because he threatens their perceived notions of superiority of the white race. They can’t stand that a black man is the most powerful person in world.
They can’t wait for Obama to fail. They can’t wait to attack him even though he hasn’t had a chance to do anything yet!
You’d be surprised how many Brits and Americans i speak to want Obama to fail but they pretend that their reasons for their negativity is political or pragmatic, when in fact, it is based on deep-rooted feelings of disgusting racism.
As a white man growing up in the UK, i have been exposed to, and conditioned with, the racist attitudes of UK society. I can identify when another white person is being racist even though they try to mask their racism with political or intellectual justifications.
I can tell you this: Alot of Brits (and Americans) view Obama as a threat to white superiority and hate the fact that a black man has shattered their traditional racist notions of superiority.
The racism in vast swathes of British and American society is covert, perhaps even subconscious, but it runs through every anti-Obama opinion i’ve heard among Brits.
These closet racists often use arguments such as “he’s inexperienced”, “he’s a Democrat”, or “he’s a muslim” to justify their oppostion to him. But if we’re honest, I think most white Brits and Americans who dislike Obama, do so because he is black and they just can’t stand a black man being on top of the world…there is no other reason to criticise a political leader who hasn’t been in office yet!