The Name Game

I saw this Osama/Obama name (and even picture) muck up coming from a mile away. (see post below). A blind man could have seen it coming and the networks should have had a meeting about if after the first time anybody, anywhere made the slip. But that's not what is so insidious.
Since Obama began running, I've heard average folks on radio and TV during "man on the street interviews" say things that remind me that there is always something deeper going on here more than a simple slip of the tongue. Take this example(roughly adapted here) from a nice well meaning white lady in WI on some NPR show: "Obama or whatever his name is." Beeyatch, you know his name!
Think about it...How much stranger is the name Obama than say the name of that southern bastion of tolerance ALABAMA? As for his first name, Barack, certainly some Americans HAVE to be familiar with the former Israeli PM Ehud Barach. Sure the spelling is different but since Hebrew and Arabic are BOTH Semetic Languages, (Gasp!) guess what? The names are the same.
But here we go again. American intolerance rearing it's ugly, name-mangling head like the tar pools that bubble up from underground along Wilshire Boulevard. You never know where it's going to happen but you are never surprised! Remember when Papa Bush warned during his run at the White House that his opponent certainly couldn't be presidential with a name like Tsongas!
Jesus, people! There are many European ethnics folks in this country with names full of Z's and C's and K's back to back yet no one bats an eyelash. So how come a brother with a nice phonetic name rolls up and all hell breaks loose?
A Vietnamese friend of mine once posted an FAQ on the door of her office. Among the answers on the list of FAQs were the following two items...
a simple pronunciation key to her name and the following admonition:

NO, you may not call me Jane or Ann or any other simpering Anglo* name (*my addition)just because you find them easier to pronounce..

"You go girl!" I said. Unlike many folks she didn't adopt an "American" name. I really feel bad that some people feel that they have to do that. Bahram becomes "Bob" or Pushpinder become Paul. I do understand the assimilation pressure and I am sure some folks get tired of correcting people over and over and over again! Sadly though, I think this only encourages those whose natural tendency might be to simply just negate people by trampling over their names. I don't believe that it's always just "honest" mistakes, when people muck up the names of other. I think it is an attempt, whether explicit or implicit, to rob people of their very identity and culture, to belittle and minimise them. I especially abhor the presumptuousness of those who would, out of their great kindness, bestow upon others, "convenient" nicknames because "honey I can't say your name right!" It tells me a lot about a person when they do not take the simple effort and time to learn how to say another person's name correctly. It's a big "ef" you! To those people I sing my anthem--Beyonce's hit song--"say my name, say my name." And if you can't, F-U too!

You say Osama, I Say Obama..Let's call the whole Thing Off

Sure it was an "honest" mistake when the MSNBC graphics person just happened to put up a picture of Osama Bin Laden instead of Barack Obama during yesterday's "Hardball with Chris Matthews." It is the same kind of honest mistake that happened some years ago when an on-air commentator's name was conveniently and erroneously spelled with and extra G in the middle, live on MSNBC. Sure, if your name is Douglas, an extra "G" in the middle isn't a big problem. But just imagine if you were named after some African country, like Niger--now famous for the non-existent yellow cake uranium and aluminium tubes. Yes. That country. Yes. That extra G actually made it on air.
Now if I were the person who had typed up that name and saw the extra "G", that would have given me pause. Sure I know that some African-American folks have taken very creative license with their children's names(Lexus, Nokia,Corolla and even Ureena). But surely even if I thought that someone's mamma was crazy enough to name their kid that, I would have just decided to err on the side of caution and forego the extra "G" .
Certainly there can be no conspiracy to link good brother Obama with bad brother Osama at NBC or any other powerful media conglomerate? Can there?
Have some compassion! Put yourself in the graphic guy's shoes: All them brothers look alike. Everybody's at risk. Mitt "misspoke." Heck, even Ted Kennedy, who endorsed Brother B.O. can't seem to tell him apart from the Saudi Satan!
See it for yourself.

"I hang with brothers, JSYK"

...says my Indian friend, after making some generalised comments about black folk. He and I haven't seen each other for quite some time. We've been friends since grad school in the early to mid 1990s. We talk politics and generally serve as an echo-chamber for each other's similar beliefs. Our politics are shaped by our shared immigrant experience and the fact that I might be 1/16th Bengali(though I don't know if the same "one drop of blood" rule applies when it comes to measuring Indianess). We argue over the $12 bottle of water on the bil: He thinks I am cheap and I think he's crazy for thinking that it is EVER OK to Pay $12 for Nordic glacier water. Yeah it's cold and wet and crisp and the bottle is nice but $12? But I digress.
What gets me is his statement that Black folks are no longer at the top of their creative game. He says, Black people have not produced anything in 30 years(he means in the musical/culture field). I am, of course rather disbelieving. Whither the hip popular American culture without black folk? Just the other day my white of white boss says: "this is how we roll!" Yes I know this is not a great achievement in terms of physics or economics, but perhaps it is! But let me not digress. After this great initial pronouncement, he continues to say... "I hang with brothers." I reply sarcastically, a la chris rock: "whaddya want? a lock of my nappy hair?" I suppose now people can feel justified and validated in expressing their "opinions" about black folk in mixed company as long as they trot out their street "creds", i.e. that "they hang with brothers." JSYK*
What the hell?!???
(just so you know.)

Greasy Glasses

My latest spectacles are about to drive me insane. I've been wearing glasses since 1985. They are pesky but generally I have been happy with them. But ever since I got the anti-glare film, I've been driven to the brink of insanity. One brush of my eyelash, a slight touch of a finger and it's blur-ville. They are hard to clean! I know I am not supposed to do it but I just end up washing the lens with dish soap. And of course there's always a bit of soap caught on the hinge and as I dry them they just smear across the lens and I have to start over again.
What an eyesore it's all become.

Rivalry is fun

Double Bubble Ballot Trouble

I been bamboozled. I been took. I been poll-taxed and butterflied. It's not as if I were some senior citizen voting in Palm Beach County, FL, circa November 2000. I am a young-ish college educated professional, but here I am, another citizen, disenfranchised by the ballot. On Super Tuesday, I discovered that I too was among many LA County voters who had been struck by the Democratic Ballot "Double Bubble" Trouble.

As a non-partisan voter, in CA, the Democratic party allowed us non-Dems to vote in their primary. As a permanent absentee voter, I requested the Democratic ballot, filled it out and mailed it back before the end of January--long before Super Tuesday. That should have been the end of it--ballot received, vote counted. WRONG!
The geniuses who designed the DEMOCRATIC ballot for non partisans added an extra "bubble" that had to be filled in order to designate that the voter wanted to vote for the democratic Party. (Duh--like, isn't that obviously my intent since I asked for the Democratic ballot?
Further, the machines that count the ballots are programmed to reject the ballot if the little party bubble isn't filled out.
Here's the salt in the wound. The ballot requests that we VOTE for ONE of either
AMERICAN INDEPENDENT and DEMOCRATIC PARTY, BUT only the Democratic party has a bubble option.
Hunh? you say? Confused? yeah. I feel you!
The ballot designers set us up to be disenfranchised with their Mandatory, Fatal false choice. Did they note that this bubble was MANDATORY ANYWHERE on this ballot? NO!
Did they ask themselves, WHY are we making people indicated they are voting for the Democratic Party when the Ballot only has Democratic Names on it?
Should it not be self evident that when a non-partisan asks for a democratic ballot that the voter INTENDS to vote for the Democratic slate? Hmmm. I suppose they needed the "Anvil of the Obvious" to drop on their genius heads to figure that out. Instead they decide to Screw the people who are trying to help them out by giving them their votes! It's like someone inviting you to their party and insulting you! Maybe next time I will decline their invitation and stay at may own non-party. See how they like that!
I paid $95 fee to became a citizen of this country so I could vote and have my voice heard. I will be damned if my vote doesn't count. I will get my money's worth. Well maybe I have. This ballot was not worth the paper it was written on. This is a first world country. Can they not figure out how to make a simple, clear, effective ballot?
Anvil moment here: What if somebody out there, does not want folk to vote?

Super Tuesday-Obama Rama continues

Yes we can.
If you can not see the video check out the original website
www.dipdive.com