ctenidae
Active member
Politics, kid movies, pretty much the same thing, except we don't have a big purple dinosaur anymore.
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Anybody staying home for the inauguration
- Thread starter Danaxxmiller
- Start date
Politics, kid movies, pretty much the same thing, except we don't have a big purple dinosaur anymore.
Johnskiismore
New member
Watched fifteen minutes of it, and went back out to the slopes.
Top busy with work to watch it. Whatever your political leanings are though, you can't deny the magnitude of a black man becoming president when just 45 years ago many blacks could not even vote.
Warp Daddy
Active member
I was at home BUT power was out for 7 hrs so we missed it dammit
mondeo
New member
Say it with me:
YES WE CAN!
50 years from now, when most of the people who lived through the 60s and 70s are gone, the fact that Obama was the first black president will be nothing more than a footnote, hopefully not even that. Which is the way it should be. It's more a sign of the times than an event of significance in itself. No barriers were broken this past election cycle; they were already out of the way, it's just that some people didn't realize it or were unwilling to accept it.
Tell that to a black person and see the response you get....
mondeo
New member
And then I'll ask them who the first black Senator was. The current perception of importance and the actual importance are two completely different things.
I don't think someone needs to validate how they feel by passing a history test.
As for your comment on perception vs actual......symbolism can be equally if not more powerful than policy.
Lincoln unlocked the door, Martin Luther King opened it, Obama was the first to walk through.
ctenidae
Active member
In 50 years, the response to the question will likely be something like, "Who cares?" By then, no one who would remember it having been a real issue will be around to remark upon it.
As white people, I really don't think we have any place disqualifying the significance of this for minorities. I believe it will be a huge point of pride for generations.
Hawkshot99
Active member
Yea I quit my job. With this new socialist state I will have no bills and have no need for a job. Cant wait for my checks to start rolling in!!!
MarkC
New member
I seriously just LOL'd! Maybe we'll get free ski passes out of this. :-D
ctenidae
Active member
I don't disagree at all, and hope you're right. Hopefully it'll be a point of pride for everyone, regardless of race, creed, nationality, or age.
mondeo
New member
Actually, I hope it never even gets mentioned 50 years from now. If people are still paying attention to it, it means people are still paying attention to race. Isn't that what we're trying to get away from here?
Dr Skimeister
New member
That sounds like it's still a barrier to me.
Should we not be mentioning Martin Luther King's accomplishments now 40 years after he left us?
Yes, we should be moving away from race, no doubt. But history is important. Today is the first morning a little black boy can wake up and tell his father he wants to grow up to be president and the father can turn to him with full belief and say you can do it if you try hard enough. Prior to yesterday, that was very much a point of doubt. I hope the significance of that moment is never lost on American people.
GrilledSteezeSandwich
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There will always be racism..it's part of life..because little kids who are born with clean slates are told by racist parents that they can only marry within their race..and isn't Obama half black??...so he's still 50% white..
mondeo
New member
The history of civil rights is important. But Obama is not a civil rights president, he's just a president who happens to be black. The significant history here took place in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. It just so happens that at this point that the majority of voters at least grew up during the civil rights movement, if not after it. This gets back to my earlier point of asking people who the first black Congressman was. The first black Congressman has a similar place in history that Obama will take, but no one remembers them. MLK and Lincoln, yes. Rosa Parks, most likely. Those who know some history will recognize people and events like Frederick Douglass and Brown vs. Board. But no one remembers the first black Congressman; it's mentioned in passing in high school history classes, but it's more along the lines of what I expect Obama being the first black president to be: "Ok, he was the first black president. A significant milestone. Now moving on, ..."
The other part of it is partly connected to my cynicism. I don't think having a black president will really change opinions that much. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will still practice the politics of race, telling whoever's willing to listen to them that the white man is still keeping them down; they'll just have to shy away from the subject of the presidency. And those who listen to them will still accept defeat. Those that didn't accept defeat before will keep on keeping on.
In the end, all of this is conjecture. No one really knows what the lasting impact will be, even black people that if you asked them today, say that yesterday was the most important day in their lives. A rule of thumb that one of my history teachers in high school taught me was that you can't really evaluate a president from a historical perspective until about 20 years after they're out of office. Same thing probably applies here. The whole "History was made today" thing is bogus. The only event I can think of, in the history of the country, that that statement could have been said for was the moon landing. That's the only event so obviously significant that you'd know it was important to history the moment it happened, and realistically, its place in history is relatively minor.
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