Monday, February 05, 2007

I can't hear you

Articulate.
One of the many offensive descriptors used by Mr. Biden in his description of Mr. Obama recently. Isn't it funny how we become so comfortable with common usage that we do not stop to think about what we are saying?
I don't think Mr. Biden will make a good president. Not because of the content of what he said but because he said it out loud. All of America might have been thinking it. But you don't say it out loud. Not as a politician anyway.
I read a very interesting article about the use of the word articulate in describing african americans and how what is really being said is actually a racial slur.
Gee Nigger you talk good.
I became aware of another truth in our society. There is no other politician out there that we refer to as anything other than, mr. or ms. and their last names. Our only exceptions are Barak Obama, who is usually referred to in the whole or just as Barak but rarely as Mr. Obama. And of course Hilary. How is it that we are so familiar with her? Isn't she Mrs. Clinton? Shouldn't she actually garner more respect, being a former first lady.
I wonder about word usage.
Like mulatto. This was a name chosen to describe me on more than one occassion. A term coined in slave times because it was believed that white men and black women could not produce fertile children. Like the horse, the donkey and their child the mule. I am not a mule child.
You need only to view my stretch marks and my children to know this. But even before my reproductive heyday, I was not a mule child.
Some words are better left alone. Articulate is indeed one of them. Never have I heard a white person described as articulate.
I had hoped for a Biden Obama ticket in 2008.
Now I need to scope the presidential hopefuls for the running mate that will most likely claim Mr. Obama's rightful spot in the oval office and yet walk with the first man of color into the White House. Albeit as Vice President.
One small step for man, one giant leap for man kind.
Damn, that Neil Armstrong sure was an articulate fellow. Wasn't him?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Personally, I was hoping for a Obama/Hillary ticket, but based on their recent bickering, I doubt that will happen...