So like millions of people around the country, my eyes were glued to CNN on election night. After President Obama flashed upon the screen, there was complete pandemonium in the Afro American Cultural Center.
I’m looking at the TV and everyone is going crazy. Jesse was crying! Hope-rah was crying! Hell, I almost let a tear fall down. As Obama emerged from backstage to address the nation, there was a sense of hope for all Americans- that we truly can do anything that we set out to do. As people cried and cheered, I cheered along with them--- but then the cameras got closer to Obama and I had to ask myself... are those waves?!
A million questions started floating around in my head on election night about President Obama's fresh cut. Does he sleep with a wave cap? What products does he use? Who lines his hair up? How often does he get it cut? Does he carry a brush around in his breifcase? After seeing a bunch of tired combovers and receding hairlines, it’s nice to see a Commander in Chief with a fresh cut and waves deeper than the Mariana Trench.
Now that we’ve all cried, sung, and hugged everyone we know, let’s get back to business. America is still fucked up. Yeah, I said it. We have a black president and somehow we still look like we’re trapped in a land of bigots. Am I being rough on America? Yes. Will I give America a break? No. Because if I did, nothing would change and isn’t that what we’re all looking for?
Liberal media. Fail. Why? Because there’s a large chance you have no clue what those states have in common. Go ahead and google it…I’ll wait….
So now that you see what I’ve taken issue with, I will begin to rage.
Change - We asked for it. Begged for it. Shit. We even got t-shirts made. And not the spray paint or cheap screen print kind. We got the real won’t fade in the washing machine shirts. Yet these propositions allow for the continued disenfranchisement of homosexuals (and others in Arkansas). Where is the outrage from America? Have we become dormant already? Are we again entering the post-Civil Rights coma induced from patting ourselves on the back one too many times? This is the time to push on.
I cannot imagine the audacity of any person who would even attempt to deny another person of any right. And to imagine a black person that did or would have voted yes on Prop 8 were they given the chance? That’s insane. I know black people love their religion but can you not look past that to see that you are denying people their human and civil rights? I guess the Bible is an established truth…kind of like science. Which is why we still abide by Eugenics.
It’s hard to push for a separation of church and state here in the land of democracy where you have the freedom to practice whatever religion you want (long as Jesus is white) when you go in a court room and swear in on a Bible. Still I find it funny that Christians pick and choose which doctrines they choose to enact and stand behind. I didn’t know that sins came on a hierarchal system. Apparently things like homosexuality send you straight to Hell but sex before marriage is cool. You just get put in timeout or something. I didn’t even know Heaven had corners.
Besides that, you (possibly previously divorced) people out there want to protect the sanctity of marriage. Though homosexuals are allowed to appropriate the language of heterosexual romantic love, they are not deserving of the right to marry. That oh so sacred rite of Las Vegas marriages somehow alludes gay people. Change marriage? Impossible. Every interracial couple I know was ecstatic about Prop 8 passing.
I had a friend(?) of mine who was happy about the yes on Prop 8 tell me that things are still equal. That homosexuals can still be equal citizens without the right to marry. Umm hellllllo. Equal. Meaning the same. After alerting him that someone/anyone/everyone else not having all the rights he has is not equality and that with marriage came other shit like taxes and hospital visitation rights and other like protections under the law. So I asked him if a prop came around that said black people can no longer marry, would he still think we were being treated as equal. He says yes…as long as they had good reason. You can’t make this shit up. The reaches to which people will go to prove they are not in fact homophobic are amazing. They have gay friends and they’re totally cool with their lifestyle…they just don’t think they should get married.
Personally, I would think that marriage between two consenting adult human beings should be an automatic. There shouldn’t be a need for legislation to make anything outside of heterosexual marriage legal. You would think the same thing applies to legislation that requires equality for racial minorities and women but we know how that goes.
Rejoice America. Change has come in Obama but so much has stayed the same. Go ahead. Party and celebrate for four years and you will look up and see that America looks eerily the same.
The North Star is an online forum of discussion and debate maintained by black activist and justice-minded students at Yale University. By creating an easily-accessible online library of social and political commentaries, we strive to foster a community voice that calls for positive change at Yale and across the world.
