What this all means.

So I was going to write some deep, introspective analysis of my feelings about this day, about how every time I take a step back to think about what just happened today... it's overwhelming. I was going to give it a title like "Dear Barack Obama: A Letter from a Person Clinging to Hope." But then Jay Smooth had to go ahead and say it all and say it better. So I'm going to save myself some time, get back to watching the inauguration balls, and let Jay Smooth say the rest.

One more thing for Obama's to-do list.

It would seem that while I was drinking bubbly and counting down the seconds to 2009, the illegality of the war in Iraq took on an additional dimension. I'm nearly two weeks late to comment on this, but it's disturbing enough to be worth a mention.

On January 1, according to an article by Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway, Congress' authorization for the war in Iraq expired. Bush had not sought to renew it. An agreement has been presented to the Iraqi Parliament by Prime Minister al-Maliki, and it was authorized there. However, on the US side of things, it seems that members of Congress had to rely on the Arab media's reporting of the agreement to catch a glimpse of its terms.

Yet another thing Obama is going to have to deal with when he moves into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Because, as stated in the article:

We are living in an age of small wars—some are blunders, but some will be necessary. The challenge is to sustain their democratic legitimacy by keeping them under congressional control. If Obama goes along with the Bush agreement, he will make this impossible. Future presidents will cite the Iraqi accord as a precedent whenever they choose to convert Congress' authorization of a limited war into an open-ended conflict.

And this is the president whose reign I came of age in.

Things to Look Forward to in 2009

I can't help but feel that it's no coincidence that I completely dropped off the face of the blogosphere as soon as the school year started and I was up to my ears in master's-degree-getting. But it's a new year--and I'm out of class for the next couple of weeks--and I am re-inspired. I make no promises (to my very small audience) about whether I will continue to blog. I'm commitment-shy like that.

And to kick off the new year, I've decided to pull together a list of Just a Few Things I'm Looking Forward to in 2009.

• The end of the Bush years. When he was "elected," I was a senior in high school, just beginning to understand politics and the relationship between the US and the rest of the world. Now, I'm beyond glad to see him go, and much beyond glad to see Obama stepping in to replace him. In fact, I think Stonewall deserves some recognition here for calling the election results back in June.
• Finishing my first year of grad school. It'll be one down, two to go. The program is technically a two-year program, but since I'm balancing school and work, it'll take me a bit longer. And by the end, I'll have another degree to put up on my wall! And I'll be many many more dollars in debt. Wait! That's not something to look forward to! Strike that last bit.
• The return of Lost. This one I almost have mixed feelings about. When the season ended last year, I was nearly giddy with my anticipation for the next season. I also know that as soon as it starts, every free moment is going to be consumed with thoughts about Lost. (Maybe that's an exaggeration, but not much of one.) I'm almost nervous about getting that engrossed all over again. But, oh, I can't wait.
• Following all my favorite blogs. This isn't unique to 2009, I suppose, but I'm still excited to read these blogs everyday. So here's a shout-out to Feministing, Feministe, Racialicious, and I Can Has Cheezburger. One of those things is not like the other.

(It's been not hard to look around and see all the ways that 2009 got off to a really fucked up start, and right now I'm thinking about the attacks in Gaza. I may want to write something about that at some point, but it's not easy to process the information that I've been gathering about that unbelievable situation.)

Some thoughts on a historic night.

It was a long day at work, and I'm just wrapping it up now. I watched Hillary and Barack give their speeches tonight, and my Washington Post news alert in my email inbox confirms it: Barack did it. The nomination is his. I'm almost too tired to process this, and I'm exhausted just thinking about the months ahead. How many times we're going to rehash the same-old-same-old nonsense, about Jeremiah Wright and flag lapel pins and such. And how every step he takes will be analyzed and picked apart endlessly.

Every time I hear him give a speech, I'm on pins and needles -- and not just because I'm moved by his words. It's because I'm waiting for him to slip, waiting for a careless moment or for the words he will say that will be twisted by everyone who's also waiting for him to slip (but not with my same motivations). While all the candidates will face the scorching light of public scrutiny, I have no doubt that Obama will have to overcome the low expectations and serious misgivings of people who still view him with suspicion -- because he is a black man.

I worry that the ones waiting for him to fail are not just in the Republican camp. I worry about all the bitter (yeah, I said it -- "bitter") Hillary supporters who are angry that she's not the nominee. Are they really going to defect to McCain? What the hell is that about? Then what were they supporting in the first place? I understand that you can become invested in a candidate and feel deeply disappointed if they're not nominated. But seriously?

And a side note about the "inadequate" comment. This is the way it is going to go. Many people will assume first that he is "inadequate," and his burden -- before he can even begin to speak about the skills that make him a worthy and fully qualified candidate -- will be to prove that he is at least "adequate." For too many, there is no assumption of even basic capabilities on his part. This story is not at all new. In school, my brother (a young black male) has always had to prove that he was minimally capable before a teacher could even begin to see that he is exceptional, and some teachers never got that far. I remember in middle school having teachers who would enthusiastically congratulate me and my parents on the frankly average work that I was doing, and my parents -- already suspicious -- would point out that I was not being pushed to do any better. Maybe this is a digression, but these are the memories that come to mind when I hear people dismiss him as an under-qualified candidate or commend him for being ... "articulate."

But back to tonight's news. A few months ago, when I was seriously contemplating the possibility of a Clinton nomination, I knew that I would vote for her in a general election. That was never the question. But much as I will when I vote for Obama in November, I knew that I would have some serious reservations and that I would want to make those reservations known. But again, it was never, ever, a question of switching to McCain out of misguided anger. So I hope we can get it together before November.

Thinking about the election gets me really thinking.

Let me start off by saying that I have supported Barack Obama since the beginning of this whole election process. The first time I found out who he was -- with his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention -- I was intrigued. I kept tabs on him every now and then, and I read first his book Dreams from my Father and then The Audacity of Hope. (I was much more impressed by the former.) He has always been my preferred candidate, largely because I see something of myself in him and in his ideas. His foreign policy has been the clincher for me, especially when others were saying that he was "naive" or willing to speak to our "enemies." I saw someone who looked at the rest of the world and understood the notion of a global community and the necessity of diplomacy. I identified with his international experience, and I was encouraged by it. I identified with him as an internationalist, which is not a four-letter word.

And these ideas are basic. These should be fundamentals.

I didn't see that in Hillary Clinton. So I chose Obama as an alternative. I've been thinking about that choice a lot lately. It is decidedly not that I determined that racism was a worse cross to bear than sexism. In conversations with other Obama supporters, I have sometimes been the one to say "not-cool" when it comes to sexist and totally unnecessary comments about Clinton.

I am a feminist. Now that it seems more and more that Clinton will be bowing out, there is a part of me that is disappointed. But I have not identified with the feminism that seems to be solely concerned with "breaking the glass ceiling." For feminism to mean anything, we need to broaden the definition. For example, the feminism I believe would look at the war in Iraq, the situation for women, the role that US militarism and occupation has played in creating this situation -- and address that as a feminist issue. I have been heartened to find places and learn from people who are insisting on a feminism that means more.

I'm not at all dismissing the "glass ceiling." Because of some lucky choices that I made and the organizations I have been able to work for, I have rarely felt held back because of my race or because of my gender. But narrow and exclusionary definitions of feminism have put a bitter taste in my mouth regarding the Clinton campaign.

Or "How Feminism Made Alice Walker a Bad Mother"

I saw this article today from the Times in the UK, listed on Racialicious. I have renamed it, because that seems to be what the writer is going for -- so why not make it clear. And maybe that's what Rebecca Walker is trying to say as well -- she obviously harbors resentment for her mother's choices and statements. But the author certainly has some strong definitions of an earlier generation of feminists.

The so-called “first wave” feminists believed that housework was another form of slavery and that women did not have an innate need to nurture but had been conditioned into their subordinate role as wives and mothers through centuries of patriarchy.

This is a popular perception, and that's definitely the understanding of feminism that I had for a long time -- which deterred me from identifying as such. But I suspect that it's not an accurate description in the first place...

I obviously know nothing about the personal relationship between these two women, so I won't even comment on that. My issue is more with the implicit link that is made between Alice Walker and the de facto position of all feminists of an older generation: that they're all about Hillary Clinton and will not tolerate younger women saying different.

"[M]y mother and her friends, they see [feminism] as truth; they don’t see it as an experiment.

“So that creates quite a problem. You’ve got young women saying, ‘That didn’t really work for me’ and the older ones saying, ‘Tough, because that’s how it should be’.”

The debate goes on: Rebecca, who lives in Hawaii with Tenzin and Glen, his Buddhist-teacher father, recently wrote about why she was supporting Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton — and immediately came under fire.

“The response from older feminists was that I, and other young women, were naive in thinking Obama could ever truly represent us, and we should be supporting the female candidate. The belief is that women become more radical as they get older, that we’re naive and we’ll ‘get it’ later on.”

Since they lump Alice Walker in with all the other "older feminists," the presumption from this article would be that, of course, she's a Clinton supporter. But I distinctly remember reading this, which says quite different (and which is very much worth reading in its entirety).

I am a supporter of Obama because I believe he is the right person to lead the country at this time. He offers a rare opportunity for the country and the world to start over, and to do better. It is a deep sadness to me that many of my feminist white women friends cannot see him. Cannot see what he carries in his being. Cannot hear the fresh choices toward Movement he offers. That they can believe that millions of Americans –black, white, yellow, red and brown - choose Obama over Clinton only because he is a man, and black, feels tragic to me.

Yeah, that last quote is Alice Walker, so there's at least one thing that mother and daughter can still agree on. Not sure why that point was obscured so neatly in this article.