106 Miles East of Seattle

The original idea for this post was to be high-minded, elegant, and optimistic in tone. It was to be very Obamaesque in presentation, and Your Wandering Gentile was to be discovered by the Sulzbergers, win a Pulitzer, and land writing comfortably on Manhattan's Upper West Side, staring from his penthouse at the Weehawken skyline.

No, that probably wouldn't happen, nor would such a change in Your Wandering Gentile's normally sarcastic, febrile, and generally brutish tone. Brutish is a good word for the moment. It ably describes the idea that Reverend Jesse Jackson expressed wishes to castrate Senator Obama for "...talking down to (slur)s."

Oh no. Oh hell no. That old man did not just go there and dog Obama like that.

It's sad, really. Reverend Jackson has had a bipolar career, combining years of elevating the African-American community with one hand via rhetoric about empowerment, and striving for equal treatment and opportunity, and with the other hand suppressing the same population by pushing away calls for accountability as racist.

Equality without accountability is not equality. This comes from a Southern, White, Christian, Heterosexal, English-speaking male, which makes the suggestion suspect. That description is the last stereotype which can be made fun of. The presumption is that a Southern, White, Christian, Heterosexual, English-speaking male has achieved great affluence by oppressing, or robbing from, anyone who does not fulfill all of the same criteria.

If those factors beyond my control are making me rich, someone forgot to give me the blessed account number.

Undoubtedly, there are those who would be defined by geography, race, religion, sexuality, language, or gender. Their number is fundamentally small. They parrot Lou Dobbs, or embrace the ideas of any number of community advocates, or am radio talk hosts who teach that those who are from another area, race, religion, sexuality, language or gender are suspected of causing harm to the observer for simple virtue of being different.

As if most people had nothing better to do than cause problems for those different from themselves.

Each community has terms to describe individuals who have such poor self-image as to fear their judgement by dissimilar persons for the offense of being different. These same individuals are barricaded inside their homes, behind chain link fences, caches of weapons, marginally operable vehicles, and foul-natured dogs, so petrified of being powerless against the hordes opposing them to realize that they themselves have become impotent and imprisoned.

To those who live down to the standard of the slurs which may apply to me: The FBI is not coming to get you; the overwhelming majority of African-Americans have as little reason or desire to get in your businessas the overwhelming majority of European-Americans; Jews are not heading a worldwide conspiracy; homosexuals are not going to have Baptists put into internment camps for not performing gay weddings; forgiving Latin Americans who want to work would be a lot less costly in the long term than trying to throw out twenty years of arrivals without papers; and human rights should not be solely applicable with regard to genitalia.

One supposes that this may come from living in a home that is composed not unlike a Milky Way bar. The Wandering Gentile's blended home comes in several flavors which are best represented as nougat, caramel, and milk chocolate. Any joke about a Snickers bar would have your Wandering Gentile, on at least a couple of levels, represented as "nuts," and therefore is to be avoided. Like a Milky Way bar, all three flavors are capable of being quite wonderful on their own, and also like a Milky Way bar, the three flavors combine as greater than the sum of their parts.

Extend further, and the case could be made for an America which is also like a Milky Way bar. Our Asian friends will please be considerate of a desire to not appear condescending, pretentious, or gratuitously offensive by screwing further with the analogy. I am already in a bad enough world of hurt from having annoyed frightened, ignorant, and heavily armed people.

There is an unspoken promise of an Obama presidency, and a key component for some who have decided in favor of the Illinois senator. Unlike Reverend Jackson, who is dependent upon a population defined by devolving into the image made by bigots, either unwilling or incapable of thinking or speaking for themselves.

Obama, a master craftsman of words, chose to express that his toolbox was open. The raw materials were free, and the masters he tutored under stood ready to give their knowledge to the willing. The value of the lesson is that the low opinion of an ignorant individual is less of an obstacle than the low level of knowledge within one's own mind.

His path out of poverty, while certainly challenging, is surer than pinning one's hopes upon athletic prowess or skill as a musical performer. There was no condescencion implied that the skill and self-discipline necessary for success as an entertainer, if applied to education, would have a guaranteed result beyond what is found in entertainment.

As opposed to devolving into the stereotype, Senator Obama offers a path to a place at the table of free and franchised citizens. The ante is high, and frequently requires the effort of more than one adult, but the rewards are significant. Ten years invested in these behaviors can accumulate more wealth and establish more worth in a family than a millenium of government largesse.

One feels a deep sadness for Reverend Jackson. One morning, a few months ago, he went from being the leading all-time record holder for African-American political figures, to anachronism.
The idea that he would never see an African-American President in his lifetime went from probability to archaic remnant of Jim Crow with every primary Obama won. His role went from that of leader and agenda setter to elder statesman.

However, Reverend Jesse Jackson was not ready to be old. He was the last vestige of the era when African-American political figures were nearly universally segregated from white politicians in the Democratic party. He spoke out in anger and impotence, blowing the bridge to his former role as leader to Kingdom Come.

People who had needed his voice were no longer enslaved to the past. People who had needed his opinion were speaking out for themselves. Chain link fences are being removed; the decrepit cars junked; weapons decommissioned; dogs fed, bathed and walked. The Obama candidacy has acheived what had only been dreamed of.

One sees a future where people evolve from defining themselves by a racial slur, and join a broader America. It is a place where wishes for violence and people who profit from those choosing ignorance are seen as tragic symbols of a savage and brutish era.

Sweet as a Milky Way bar.