Grandpa, How Did You Vote?

BY BIKO AGOZINO

Americans are a people who have a love affair with history-making. There are many monumental moments in history when Americans left their gigantic marks in epochal moves that have helped to change the course of history on grand scales. There is no need to recount such historic events to prove the obvious point. Suffice it to say that Americans are presented with another such epochal moment of change-making choice by the candidacy of Barack Obama.

Years to come, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, social scientists, historians, journalists, biographers, film makers and total strangers would be asking eligible American voters of today how they cast their votes on November 4th 2008. For instance, ‘Grandpa, how did you vote in 08?’

Some would answer that it was the first time that they ever voted in their lives, the first time that they participated in a presidential campaign, or the first time they contributed money to a presidential campaign with much enthusiasm. They could look at the grandkid with a broad smile and say, ‘Grandma and I are proud to have helped to elect the first black president of the United States of America.’ Wow!

The future generations would look at your choice as awesome and feel connected to the history that you would make with the way you cast your votes on that day. Many first grade students may be showing and telling about the grandparents who helped to elect the first black president!
Some may vote against the first black president but how would they explain it to their descendants?

Would they lie about their vote and let their conscience prick them for not choosing the road hitherto less traveled on? The sports-loving Americans know when they have a chance to win a grand slam with a slam dunk and they would not pass over the opportunity to win personal, national and international glory with one rare chance to change history with a single vote.

Some Americans would choose the chance to tell their grandkids with a clear conscience that even if they always voted for a different party in the past or because they have always been independent voters, they voted this time to help make huge history by electing the first black president of the country.

Voting for Senator John McCain to be the first prisoner of war who could have become president or to make Governor Sarah Palin the first female vice president are also historic but not on the scale of electing Senator Barack Obama as President and, as his Vice President, Senator Joe Biden (who moved that historic Congress motion for the unconditional release of saint Nelson Mandela from prison that was voted down by some who must now be obviously regretting the way that they had voted down that motion that signified American sound judgment).

Of course, it is not just because the candidate is ‘Black’; he is also incredibly good with sound policies, a solid team behind his successful ground-breaking campaign and with a rallying call for meaningful change that energized millions of voters. In fact, Obama is not even black since all ‘Black’ people are really brown in color; just as ‘White’ people are, without exception, not white but pink in color; just as Asians are far from being ‘Yellow’, for that matter.

It just so happens that the people called ‘Black’ in America have had a peculiar history that makes the voting on November the 4th more symbolic and more significant as a chance to make history by voting for Obama. That is probably why many Americans are yet to make up their minds how to vote on that day, they are probably weighing the enormity of the historical responsibility riding on those votes that they are about to cast. But as Americans like to say, this historic choice is really a no-brainer.

History tells us that the majority of pragmatic Americans would choose to make history by voting Obama-Biden overwhelmingly. And long after the votes are counted and recounted to be certain that all votes were properly tallied, proud Americans would seek to hold the first black president accountable by offering support, criticism, policies, prayers and services to help make sure that their votes would be more than symbolic since they could also help to make his regime one of the most epochal and most successful presidencies ever. The rest of the world would be happy to oblige with admiration for a good example of American democracy. You Go Americans. Si Se Pueda!

Dr. Biko Agozino is Professor of Sociology, Criminology Unit Coordinator and Deputy Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. bagozino@yahoo.com or onwubiko.agozino@sta.uwi.edu

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Willie Lynch Failed

How to Free the Enslaved

Dear Children,

You may be wondering why I sent you the Willie Lynch speech for discussion. The reason is that some people believe that his fear-envy-distrust methods still work today to prevent black men from being true men and to prevent black men and black women from building healthy families. There are no chains around our feet (as Bob Marley sang) but if we suffer from mental slavery, then we are not yet free from slavery. The key to freedom is therefore the mind or the awareness that we are not yet free. The speech emphasized that the way to maintain slavery is to weaken the mind of the men and keep them physically strong.

That method failed because our ancestors maintained a strong mind and we are lucky today to have strong minds of our own to protect and advance our freedom. In other words, we must use all the educational opportunities available to us to make our minds stronger so that no one would enslave our people ever again. The slave-holders failed in their attempts to weaken our minds, we owe it to ourselves to make sure that we do not allow our minds to grow weaker. So education is the key to our freedom and equality as human beings, we must take it seriously.

No matter how strong a person is physically, if he is not well educated, then he will be a servant to people who are weaker physically but wiser. The most famous people in the world are not the strongest but often the wisest. Human beings are not as strong as many wild animals but human beings are more dominant because of our intelligence, unity, creativity, courage and love.

The speech of Willie Lynch also said that a good way to dominate black people is to keep us divided by making the young fight against the old, making women fight against the men and making the light-skinned fight against the dark-skinned. They try to keep us divided by making us distrust one another and only trust the slave-holder. Again the method failed woefully because our people still retain the respect that we show to elders, our men and our women continue to love one another and we love all people who are good to our people no matter what skin complexion they have. This means that we must love all (our) people and maintain our unity in order to prevent others from enslaving us ever again.

Willie Lynch talked about black people as if we were horses to be broken down and controlled. He assumed that if you humiliate a black man in the presence of his woman or children, then the woman and the children will never show respect to the man again. The good news is that black people are not horses, we are human beings and no amount of effort to humiliate us or turn us into wild beasts would succeed.

Again, education, love and unity will prevent anyone from treating us like beasts of burden. Horses do not speak a language but Mr Lynch called for our languages to be destroyed and replaced with a deceptive language which says that ‘our crops’ are not really our crops but those of the slave-master. Again, this has not succeeded because our people know that we need to study and work smatter to create wealth for ourselves because their wealth is not really ours.

So my beloved children, do not let anyone stop you from getting the best education possible, do not let anyone make you to hate your elders, do not let anyone make you to hate your women, do not let anyone make you to judge anyone based on the colour of the skin rather than the content of the character. Develop your minds by reading histories and biographies, science and philosophy and not only fiction, develop a scientific mind by asking questions, develop your language skills by speaking publicly about what you need without fear, speak up for the voiceless, show love to everyone and support justice and fairness and no one will ever enslave you. Keep writing too.

Lots of love.

Dad