Today, I treat you to a guest post by my blog cousin @CitizenOjo, you can find him over on The Desultory Life & Times of a Public Citizen. That whole birth certificate brouhaha hit home to him. Here's why...
I saw the following statement on Twitter last week “April 27, 2011, the day the United States lost." In case you don’t know April 27th was the day President Barack Obama finally showed us his birth certificate. Gasp!!! The long national nightmare is over!!!! Finally Obama has proven that he is not the “Manchurian Candidate” he is portrayed as. This should be the greatest thing? But if it is, why do I feel so down about the whole situation?
I’m no Obama Fanatic by any stretch of the imagination. I fell off the bandwagon awhile back and I’m not planning on chasing the wagon train back down. I don’t hate the man. I actually think he is a nice person that wants to make America a better place. I just don’t like some of the people that he surrounds himself with and some of the decisions that he makes. I know racists are mad as hell that he’s in the White House. Black racial apologists are mad that he lives there too.
This malarkey about a birth certificate is a distraction that is all about RACE. This fiasco has brought out certified nut job provocateur Orly Taitz and Carnival Barker Donald Trump. Taitz, who can barely speak English, thinks that Obama’s certificate isn’t real because it says African and not Negro. So this white woman is an expert on black folk’s birth certificates? Did she take classes for this in college or learned it while hanging out in “The Hood”? Yes, you are hearing **crickets** in the background!!! And Trump…..oh boy!!! He was doing so well when he was known for firing people and fighting Rosie, after I dissed Oprah I’m kissing up to her now, O’Donnell in the press. Not only does he question Obama’s heritage but he thinks Obama is unintelligent. Again, you are hearing **crickets** in the background!!! So now we are questioning the admission standards for Ivy League Schools? I wonder how Trump really feels about Dr. Randal Pinkett, season 4 winner of The Apprentice, the Rhodes Scholar who attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Side Note - To all the black folks that attended Predominately White Institutions and laughed with disdain when I told them I attended a Historical Black University: “No matter how hard you try to fit in they still don’t respect you either!!!”
Are you still wondering why this mess has got me felling sad? My son was born in February 2011. After he was born, I told my wife that this was our greatest creation. I love that kid to death and I pray for him every night. But something was bothering me before we left the hospital. I kept obsessing over the birth certificate being correct. And I was adamant about picking it up from our local government offices as soon as possible. I didn’t understand why I was like that until this week. Obama, my son, hell maybe even me.
Our existence and dignity has been tied to a sheet of paper that tells where and when we were born. American has again proven that any person that doesn’t look 100% caucasian is still a number on a piece of paper (ala’ 3/5ths person rule). I guess I didn’t want my son to have his citizenship questioned because he was unable to produce a birth certificate from 2011. I wanted to prove that he belonged. And even though I already knew he was a citizen, it wouldn’t matter unless he had that paper. So when Obama finally showed his birth certificate, I figured out why this spectacle had me so bothered. I use to laugh at all those Birthers on tv for being brainwashed. In the end I had realized that the Birthers had brainwashed me too.
Well good people, what did you think about the birther nonsense? Do you think Obama should have provided additional proof? Did you think there was a racist element to the entire attack? Do share your thoughts...