100 days
I celebrated the first 100 days of Obama's presidency in the living room of my mother-in-law, who is recovering from pneumonia.
She admitted her generation worried about "the system," AKA "the man" as it related to the generation following hers - mine and my wife's, her daughter.
Like me, I know a lot of African Americans with Bachelors, Masters and PhD's in science and engineering that... can't find work. I know of at least one driving the airport's "Super Shuttle" and myself selling security alarm systems. I find the business cutthroat and brutal: you are dueling with competitors and customers comparing you to competitors. I find solace in working equations in quantum mechanics and calculus and look forward to a career in academia (hence on my profile, "Education" as my soon-to-be occupation).
Yet, I meet people I used to work with at my former company (of the "other" persuasion), the one that laid me off August 26, 2003 that have never experienced a lay off, have received raises and bonuses - probably for laying off people - that have never seen a dip in their wages, have never gone on food stamps, have never found creative after creative way to pay their mortgages and aren't reduced to blogging their angst for the world wide web to see.
Our optimism is supposedly "up" because we have a black president. Other than the prophesy of Tupac and Public Enemy CDs, I am nonplussed at the absurdity of the soundbite.
Don't get me wrong: I cheered when the man made it. I called - or tried to call - friends and celebrate over cellphone calls as I celebrated at the Obama party I attended.
I quote Frederick Douglass in "Memoir": "The soul that is within me, no man can degrade." It was a means of building up my inner man and straightening my backbone. I've been in the battle a long time, longer than most of you. It's my own personal mantra. If it helps, borrow it.
Yet, I cannot ignore Douglass' quote on power:
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Let's not quietly submit or endure: "The soul that is within you, no ONE can degrade." Peace.
She admitted her generation worried about "the system," AKA "the man" as it related to the generation following hers - mine and my wife's, her daughter.
Like me, I know a lot of African Americans with Bachelors, Masters and PhD's in science and engineering that... can't find work. I know of at least one driving the airport's "Super Shuttle" and myself selling security alarm systems. I find the business cutthroat and brutal: you are dueling with competitors and customers comparing you to competitors. I find solace in working equations in quantum mechanics and calculus and look forward to a career in academia (hence on my profile, "Education" as my soon-to-be occupation).
Yet, I meet people I used to work with at my former company (of the "other" persuasion), the one that laid me off August 26, 2003 that have never experienced a lay off, have received raises and bonuses - probably for laying off people - that have never seen a dip in their wages, have never gone on food stamps, have never found creative after creative way to pay their mortgages and aren't reduced to blogging their angst for the world wide web to see.
Our optimism is supposedly "up" because we have a black president. Other than the prophesy of Tupac and Public Enemy CDs, I am nonplussed at the absurdity of the soundbite.
Don't get me wrong: I cheered when the man made it. I called - or tried to call - friends and celebrate over cellphone calls as I celebrated at the Obama party I attended.
I quote Frederick Douglass in "Memoir": "The soul that is within me, no man can degrade." It was a means of building up my inner man and straightening my backbone. I've been in the battle a long time, longer than most of you. It's my own personal mantra. If it helps, borrow it.
Yet, I cannot ignore Douglass' quote on power:
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Let's not quietly submit or endure: "The soul that is within you, no ONE can degrade." Peace.
posted by Unemployed | 9:42 PM
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