It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today. ~Barack Obama
This post has been a long time coming. While I talk about politics and social issues at length on The Envy McKee Show, rarely do I use this space to dish about that stuff here. It’s my way of keeping this page above the firmament. It’s my way of keeping this space free from the stuff that divides us. My goal here is always to uplevel the kinds of conversations we have with ourselves. This is meant to be a self reflective space. To focus on those things that make us great as individuals. Those things that help us rule ourselves. Those things that move us forward, no matter what the world outside of us is doing.
Politics has become a battleground for our most petty and prejudiced bulljank. Folks get caught up in what I like to call “the bullshit”. So many times with that, we let our “the bullshit”, no matter what it may be, shackle us into the kind of very small thinking that makes it complicated for us to see the bigger, bigger picture for our lives and the lives of those around us.
Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country’s scared. ~Barack Obama
On my show, this is always top of mind. No matter how ratchet our conversations get, the thread that binds it all together is the freedom we find in our speech. The freedom that washes over us when we’re allowed no filter for our points of view AND we are heard. We don’t care about about cussing or hurt feelings or right or wrong. We care about the continuing conversation. When those mics crack, we are free as friends of the revolution to sit around that gorgeous round table, mics in our faces, as we face the world with our truth. The authentic dialogue that happens every single Monday through Friday High Noon (esque) to 3 is about the most powerful 3 hours of my life. Bigger than that, it has become powerful to hundreds and thousands of people around the world also. Lives get changed every single day. Insights happen. The funniest, most unforgettable moments happen. Real, authentic conversations happen about our real lives and how we manage ourselves through them. I would be lying if I said any of it is by accident. I would be lying because I was born to do this. It’s in my cells. My very DNA. I’m living it, because I’m designed to. I was born to have a voice in this continuing conversation, just as you were born to recognize your divine voice too.
Now what comes with this. What comes with this is tremendous responsibility. What comes with this is a power far greater than you or I even care to recognize sometimes. It’s complicated out here sometimes. We’re afraid of our power. We’re afraid to make right and wrong choices. We’re afraid that if we stand in our fullest glory, our glory will overwhelm the smallness we like to believe we are. The truth is, your glory is designed to overwhelm your feelings of smallness. Because you aren’t small. You are grand. You are immense. You are the most massive ball of awesome that ever walked this planet. Mostly because that’s what you are designed to be. Awesome. God don’t make no junk. And if you think the most awesome presence in the universe does make junk, clearly, you’re checking for the wrong God.
Now we’re in the midst of not just advocating for change, not just calling for change – we’re doing the grinding, sometimes frustrating work of delivering change – inch by inch, day by day. ~Barack Obama
I’ve set this post up this way for a very specific reason. On the eve of the second most historic election in our generation, we are faced with a choice bigger than we can imagine. Folk who read this blog and live in the US are facing an election that not only has political consequences, it has spiritual ones as well. I’m not here to get caught up in religion or what you think you believe. I’ve already stated plainly, this space is about bigger pictures. This space isn’t about the little things that divide us. It’s about the big things that bind us.
Last week we faced probably the biggest climate change driven storm since Katrina. It hit the East Coast with a hand the size of Texas and swatted us down like a mom on a mission. People’s lives have changed forever in one day or less. Homes have washed into the ocean. I watched one woman rooting through the mud where her house once stood, trying to find the remnants of a lifetime of memories she’ll never see again. I saw bodies bloated and floating in flood waters. I saw anger and fear and crying that I remember not so fondly from the debacle that was Hurricane Katrina. Turns out, Hurricane Sandy had greater plans. When New York City finds herself underwater, hon-tee. To me, something in the universe is looking to get our attention. I don’t know about you, but like Chris Christie and Michael Bloomberg, I’m all ears.
This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands. ~Barack Obama
It’s a shame that it takes pain and tragedy to get our full attention sometimes. Climate change wasn’t even mentioned once in the presidential debates of last month. It’s on everyone’s lips now. Well. At least those in this country who aren’t of the millions who still don’t have power, or the some who won’t have power until nearer to the end of the month. It’s probably not top of mind to those folks who are waiting in lines miles long and for hours just to get the gas they need to keep their generators running. So they can keep a semblance of normalcy. Whatever that is. It’s probably not top of mind to the hundreds and thousands of people who’ve lost their homes, their cars or can’t get to work, to make their living wage because public transportation is down. I know it’s not top of mind to those folks who have lost their loved ones to Hurricane Sandy’s ravages. Clearly, it’s NOT top of mind for Donald Trump, who is more concerned with getting his feelings hurt by way of our president not giving a rat’s f*ck about his $5 million conspiracy theory/birther challenge– that it didn’t cross his mind to donate that same ratchet $5 million dollars to the survivors of Sandy who can actually use that money to rebuild their lives. But that’s a whole other post.
These are real peoples lives I’m talking about here. Real people like you and me who aren’t fortunate enough to have an internet connection or phone service or their lights on. My house lost power for 4 days. I didn’t have proper phone service for 2. That’s less than nothing compared to those people who’s entire lives were drowned by the kind of storm that probably could have been avoided, had we made different choices when he had them to make. No. We can’t go back. No. We can’t change the past. No. We can’t beat ourselves up for our hindsight or the blindness to what we believe about our prejudice and/or politics.
On every front there are clear answers out there that can make this country stronger, but we’re going to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling. Our job is to make sure that even as we make progress, that we are also giving people a sense of hope and vision for the future. ~Barack Obama
The truth is. We’ve been sold a crock. The truth is. We’ve been led to believe that nothing we do impacts more than ourselves. The truth is. That’s simply not true. Every single thing we do effects and affects more than just us. Our one seemingly teeny choice impacts millions of lives we may never ever cross paths with. The truth is. Our choices are our power. Our Prejudice and Politics are our demise. Rome wasn’t built in a day. But it fell to flames by the sword of arrogance, ignorance, prejudice and politics in a far shorter time than it took to build the damn thing.
Which leads me to the actual point of this post. Tomorrow is election day. Tomorrow is the day we’re all supposed to be giddy about the prospect of “our guy” making the grade. Those of us who see a picture for this country bigger than ourselves are casting our vote for THE ONLY CHOICE if you look anything different than rich, white and male. I’m not here to rag on Mitt Romney about his Zelig Candidacy. I’ve done it enough on my show for it to be rendered redundant here. The truth is Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan don’t give a damn about climate change or poor people or middle class people or people of color or people out of work or the elderly or college students or deployed soldiers or veterans or women and their bodies or every American citizen’s rights or the economy or people’s lost lives or anything tangible or important to the rest of us. As their candidacy thus far has proven, the only thing they care about is winning. By any means necessary. The Republican party as a whole has proven through the last TWELVE years that people’s lives don’t matter to them. It’s in the way they’ve handled their prejudice and politics throughout the last four years. The first four years of Obama’s presidency. It’s in the way they to talk to us. Not as WE the people, but pawns on their ratchet chess board.
But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace. That’s what I strive to do, that’s what I pray to do every day. ~Barack Obama
Just looking at the blaring differences between the party conventions you can see what our choices look like. On the “red” side we have “the great white hype”. You have homogeneous, stale, stagnant thinking, divisiveness, talking to empty chairs, status quo, small thinking, religious zealots, creationism, elitists, plutocrats, 1%, “let’s go back to the good ole days and the good old way when white people ruled and these danged coloreds knew their place”. Lest we forget, they also have Donald Trump, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, Jon Hubbard, Sean Hannity, the Koch Brothers, and Fox News–to name a few–as their mouth pieces.
On the “blue” side we have “WE the people”, thinking people of multi-ethnicities, multi-religions, multi-creeds, multi-complexions, gays, straight, elders, students, passion, genius, outliers, revolutionaries, brilliance, creativity, activists, grassroots movements, inclusion of the ALL, 99%. Lest we forget, we also have President Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Dr. James Peterson, Corey Booker, Bill Maher, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jay Z, Beyonce, and so, so, so many more I’ll need the rest of the length of this page to name them all. As mouth pieces.
If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress. ~Barack Obama
To me, when the dopest people on the planet support your cause, it says something about you. It also says something when the whackest people on the planet support your cause. What I’m speaking of isn’t about politics. It’s about like attracting like. It’s actually a spiritual principal. Am I saying you’re whack and there’s something fundamentally wrong with you should you choose to support Mitt Romney on Tomorrow? And you happen to NOT be a rich, white male? Not necessarily.
And yet, I’m being reminded of a quasi-famous saying. You know that saying about guilt by association? That one that says that you may not be a hoe, but all your friends are hoes, so the world around you automatically assumes you’re a hoe by who you keep company with. I mean, I’m sure that’s not the best example to make the point I’m making under the circumstances, and yet it is. You may not be whack, but if your prejudice and politics line up with the prejudice and politics of all THE whackest people on the planet, the obvious association is going to be what class? Right. I’m not judging, I’m just saying.
Unfortunately, Mitt Romney has proven himself to be mediocre at best. He’s shown the world time and again that he is a liar, a bully, a man with little character or moral code and the only things he cares about are his money, his interests, his prejudice and his politics. The rest of us be damned. Mitt Romney is in this to put another notch on his mediocre, hanging off his ass belt. Think of that p*ssy chasing guy in the club. The one who will tell you anything to get your pants down. Welp. Some of ya’all certainly have your pants down.
Which leads me to this. I remember vividly asking my grandmother after the 2008 election how it felt for her to be living when the first Black person, bi-racial and all, was elected to the highest office of this country. She said to me, “there aren’t even words”. I was in front of a TV in Miami when all the votes came in. I saw the Chicago masses and heard the deafening cheers on the news and in the streets outside of my best friend’s apartment when it was announced that Barack Obama was the President elect. Yes. There were tears. For me though, it wasn’t about Barack being the first Black president of the United States. For me it was about seeing how this country came together for the bigger picture. We voted with our hearts and heads, rather than our politics and prejudice.
I was in London during Barack’s first inauguration. My sister and I watched him being sworn in on this little TV in our hotel room. To see the sea of faces of every race, creed, color, and age standing in the same place where 43 other presidents took their oath of office. But this time, we were watching “one of us”, one of the 99% making history. Barack Obama’s election four years ago wasn’t about color. It was about revolution. It was about changing the tides of the long standing status quo, where only rich, white men can have power over all of our lives. It was about taking a step forward from the plutocracy that has bound us in mental slave-like thinking since its onset. It was about us, knowing our power and moving it sword-like in one accord toward the greater good. We did that. WE the people.
Even when folks are hitting you over the head, you can’t stop marching. Even when they’re turning the hoses on you, you can’t stop. ~Barack Obama
And WE have to do it again. If you’ve been paying any amount of attention to this election, you already know what it is. You already know that Mitt Romney is a fraud. Take five minutes to look at his body of work and common sense will hit you like a brick in the face. If it doesn’t, and you’re NOT rich, white and male, the only thing you can blame is your politics and prejudice. I’ve had loads of conversations with people who try to justify why they’re voting for Romney. They’re all white, they’re all male and they all have issues with the black guy. That’s it. They aren’t thinking about facts or truths or reality or how their choice impacts millions of people beyond them. They see Mitt Romney as they see themselves: the last hoorah. They say to themselves, “if Barack’s presidency is a success in the next four years, our fate is sealed. We’ll never be looked at with the same “the great white hype” nonsense ever again. Actual dope people from every ethnicity and economic background have a shot to be a part of making this country great too. Hell, I’ll actually have to do some work to be level with my peers who are dope no matter who they are.” “The great white hype” don’t like that idea. And the rich ones are down right offended by the notion. Ask Donald Trump and the Koch brothers, bless their little hearts.
I’ve always been told, when a person shows you who they are, believe them. Mitt Romney has shown us time and time and time again that not only is he not a dude that should be president, he’s also mediocre at best at everything he’s ever done. EVERYTHING, except for make money from other people’s misfortune. Which sucks to have as a strong point. If that kind of person is what you’re into and like to hang around, by all means, have at it.
If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost. ~ Barack Obama
Your choice is your right. But when your choice is also attached to GINORMOUS attempts at thwarting other folks rights to make a different choice, i.e. voter id laws, voter suppression and the like– that’s where we have a problem. If you affiliate yourself with a party who would steal millions of American citizens free and anonymous right to vote because they’re afraid of losing, imagine what they’d do to you if they were to win. Anything else it would take to get what they want. Enter the gaping wounds and memories of the Bush/Cheney era here. Again, your choice is your right. But just remember that saying about guilt by association…
It is by no small accident that since 2004, I have been on the air and putting my political passions on the front burner to get us all riled up and ready for what we’re called to do. It’s part of my purpose to mobilize people toward the greater good. In 2004, I helped to register more folk of the Hip Hop generation to vote in one election cycle than had been registered in the history of Presidential elections in the Philadelphia Tri-state area. My role was to get us impassioned about our voice, our vote and make talking about politics sexy and relevant. It is now very, very sexy and relevant to be well-versed in the continuing political conversation, where politics mostly got the finger when I first started.
In 2008, I was one of the first voices in media to unabashedly stand up and show my support for Barack Obama–media bias be damned. My choice was one of the reasons I left commercial radio four years ago. Not only because I stood up for those with quieter voices than me, and because I defended the power of our vote against a colleague who tried to shit on it. But also because I stood up for my principles against an administration who chose their corporate “the bullshit”, over the people they built their company to serve. I told the truth. And I lost my job. Because there’s nothing that scares a plutocracy more than an uprising of the people. I’ve been standing up for WE the people ever since, because that’s my call to do. If not me, who? If not now, when? I don’t have a plutocratic corporation on my back anymore attempting to squash my voice or yours. I took my freedom to speak and grew it, made a media revolution out of it. Not just for me. But for us all. WE the people. Every single one of our votes matter. Because every single one of our voices make the waves generations after us will swim in. Do you want those waters to look like a sea of “red” or “blue”? The choice is entirely up to you.
We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent. ~Barack Obama
I’m voting for President Barack Obama because I know what the past looks like and so do you. It doesn’t look like WE the people. The past was stale, old, stagnant, mediocre, plutocratic and homogeneous. The past was about the 1% dictating their whims, politics and prejudice on WE the 99%.
I’m voting for President Barack Obama because I want my daughter to grow up in a country where excellence is the norm and the company she keeps is awesome as the standard.
I’m voting for President Barack Obama because corporations are NOT people. Corporations are corporations. Some of them are the same plutocrats that treat their employees like slime and get away with it because folk are so overworked and so underpaid.
I’m voting for President Barack Obama because I know my choice matters so much. I know that to not tell you about it, I’m not actually living one of my greatest purposes on this planet–to tell the unbridled truth, no matter the consequences. I have to do it because very few people you know will or do. In my poetic, prophetic way, I see the greater good in that.
I’m voting for President Barack Obama because I’m so looking forward to watching the last hoorah finally play all the way out. I’m looking forward to the last of “the great white hypes” finally curling up, making like the dinosaur and becoming extinct. With their ravages on this planet finally at peace , we can all move on toward our greatest selves and lives yet. Prayerfully, all these “about to be extinct f*ckers”, will take all those “p*ssy chasers from the club” with them when they go. I’m just saying.
Most importantly, I’m voting for President Barack Obama because I can. My vote is my voice. It’s my power. It’s my free and anonymous right. Because people like my grandmother fought and died to make sure that I could go to the polls tomorrow and cast my choice in this the second most important election in our generation. My vote is what makes me free, American, and triumphantly a member of an elite class of people. WE the people.
If you don’t vote, you don’t matter. People will tell you that they don’t care who you vote for, as long as you vote. Me? I do care. Your choice matters. Politics and Prejudice be damned. As far as I’m concerned, re-electing President Barack Obama is the only choice we have tomorrow. To do anything else is saying WE the people don’t matter. It’s saying our progress doesn’t matter. It’s saying moving forward to toward the future we are designed to live–not just locally, but globally– doesn’t matter. It’s saying “yes massa” to a plutocratic past that deserves to rest now. It’s a relic. It’s crumbling to it’s death. By re-electing President Barack Obama, we put nails in that coffin, so we can move on in glory. By the way, the TRUTH is not debatable. I’ll see you tomorrow at the polls. Looking forward to President Barack Obama’s second victory speech. Yes, we DID! So it is…
Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,” he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do. ~Barack Obama
The moral of this story? I actually do have one! Vote or Dumb. Now you know why your vote, your voice and your choice actually matters. Tuesday November 6th is the big show. Forward!!!!! #Obama or Bust! Love you madly for reading this too. Love, -e-