What If Michelle Obama Was White?

Barack, you're so smitten!

I voted “absentee-in-person” today, and realized that “absentee-in-person” was just a clever way to open polls for 2 weeks instead of 1 day (You can vote in Arlington County if you plan on being outside of the county on 11/4 for undisclosed personal business). Because, honestly, how does it make sense to have everybody vote on the same day? Fucking none, that’s how much.

In any case, as I was voting “No” on a measure to spend $50M on a water treatment plant, it hit me: if Michelle Obama was white, it would have completely changed this election. I was completely sure about this, but it was unclear to me exactly what would have changed. I came up with the following talking points:

1. Black Women Would Hate Barack: He’d be just another rich/powerful Black man who married a White woman, which could have drawn enough ire from Black women to propel Hillary to the nomination. The only reason I’m unsure is I don’t know if single and married Black women would both vote against him. Totally unsure if either group would be cool with the White chick.
2. What Kind of White Girl, Exactly?: If we’re talking Carla Bruni here (the obvious comparison), Obama would get absolutely slammed. It would be the double standard of all double standards, but there’s no way working class White people would vote for a Black man married to a White model, especially not one they already see as a tad ‘elitist’ (educated). If we’re talking Lucy Page, then I think it definitely works in his favor. Put it this way, people would listen to a Lucy-Page-type-wife when she talked about how they can trust Barack.
3. It Would Completely De-Blackify Barack: I almost don’t want to write this because I voted for him, but this isn’t that big of a blog, so whatever. I’ve always thought it’s kind of strange how Barack was abandoned by his Black father and raised by his White mother/grandparents, but he married a Black woman. It goes against the whole “mom-impression” thing, it just doesn’t happen very often (see Tiger Woods for a good example). And I mean, he grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, which aren’t exactly Black-culture hotspots. I really need more information on his exes (I can’t find any info), but I assume he dated Black chicks all the way and was banging nothing but Marvin Gaye when it was time to get business done. The Black wife makes him a Black man more than a halfie. Not sure what effect this has.
4. White Women Would LOVE Him: Ah, the hidden truth. Who am I kidding, Hillary wouldn’t have stood a chance. So we’ve all heard the “men love Sarah Palin because they’re attracted” thing, but why haven’t we heard the same about women for Obama? Is it just underreported, or is it just not as strong as it would be if Michelle was White? I’m just saying.
5. In The End, It Wouldn’t Matter: The economy is all that matters in the end, and he would have cruised to victory either way.

Ed note: I have nothing against Michelle Obama. The question I should have asked was if a White woman would have been strong enough to be his rock during this 2 year campaign….

No Asians 2008 – Update

I caught up with Will today to talk about his No Asians 2008 progress. I’ll paraphrase what he had to say.

“It’s tougher than I ever thought it would be. I see opportunities everywhere, everyone calls me ‘retarded’ when I tell them about the pledge, and in my weaker moments I almost agree with them. But I’ve come this far, and I have to press on. It’s getting hard. I can deal with Asian girls approaching me or grabbing me on dance floors, but not much more than that. And what the hell? The Playboy Playmate of the Month for November 2008 is Korean?!?! The centerfold is reserved for White girls and, on occasion, White-looking Black girls. It’s too dangerous to the populous to put an Asian girl in that spot.

…

“I was sitting in the den, minding my business, when I saw her out of the corner of my eye. I knew it was trouble. I didn’t have to check her out to know she was beautiful because I could gauge it from the voice inflections of the guy who first started talking to her. I could see the 6-second glances she took at me to try to pry my attention, but I held onto a solemn ignorance about it even if it was prolonging the inevitable. Do you ever see a girl, just see her, and start hearing music in the background? You’re done when that happens. I couldn’t, and didn’t, look.

“My plan backfired when I saw her getting dressed in my room (it was a mixed dorm) two hours later as I was waking up from a nap. I initially avoided direct conversation, choosing a more indirect means. Eventually I led on that she had earned my full attention, which turned the sexual tension between us from medium to piping hot. At this point we talked directly for 2 minutes about things that were less important for their content than they were for their comfort.

“When she left for Paris I felt more foolish than I had in several years, maybe more than that. My hands were literally trembling. Everything I knew about women told me to hold on to my stoicism at all costs, but everything I knew about life told me it was foolish not to indulge because it might not happen again. I thought I’d lost my mind until I saw a tear fall out of her eye as she looked at me over her right shoulder. I immediately looked at the floor when she left my sight to stay in that moment for as long as possible.

“A Finnish guy came into the room as she was leaving, which would have been mildly awkward if he didn’t back-glance to check her out as she walked away. This led to the following exchange between us in heavily broken English:

“So… this girl, you sleep with her together?”

I chuckle and keep looking at the floor.

“I tell you… I know I, uh, wouldn’t mind”

He paused for a second to assess. Then he flurried around in his backpack until he found a leather-coated flask. He handed it to me saying “trust me, this you need” and I took several swigs of what tasted like Vodka mixed with Ouzo. We spent a solid 5 minutes talking about asses before heading to a bar down the street. I forgot about her as the minutes dripped by, which filled me with bursts of shame that came and went. Then she faded into the past like the other girls I used to think about. They call that being “over it” I think.

Happiness

To me, happiness, pleasure, and satisfaction are all eerily synonymous. If I spend my life searching for all three, the road will never fork itself. And this particular road isn’t a compartmentalized analogy, it illustrates that idea that a very real journey is involved. I call it, ‘The Journey’. It doesn’t need any more adjectives to confuse that fact that it’s the only real journey worth undertaking. Any remotely questionable move I make in life can be answered with this idea internalized.

• ‘Why are you moving to Australia?’
• ‘Why would you do that in public?’
• ‘Why are you banging that awful tramp again?’

“I’m on The Journey, man.”

Amen.

To me, the difference between a travel and a journey is that a journey has no real destination. If it did, the journey would lose all of it’s meaning and would devalue into being nothing more than a means (however exotic) to an end. A real journey has no end. Let’s get to the story already.

…

… I didn’t want to miss out on the fun, so I stampeded an American couple after they got shoved into my path by some of my fellow countrymen who ran on-board like it was the last bus out of hell. After the dust settled, the seats weren’t even close to being filled, which didn’t reveal a strand of irony to anyone who had just fought their way through the queue. I sat in the back near the rear door (the best bus seat there is), which was luckily in earshot of the American couple I just had a brush with. The man said something like “first the bus was late, then we get beat up trying to get on” before finishing his frustrated thought with the word off the tongue of the traveler I hate most: an exasperated “… (sigh) incredible!” which is usually delivered with a side to side head shake and a palm strike on the thigh.

I wanted to go up to the guy and tell him that life (especially on vacation) isn’t about having your transportation expectations met pound and ounce. Life is a journey, and if you don’t pay attention to how you get there, you’ll miss out on all of it. It’s a lot like love. Love isn’t a destination. You don’t get to “being in love” and stay there, basking in love day in and day out from here to eternity. Being in love is a journey of falling in (and out of) love. In other words, the love disappears when the ebb and flow of love stops because human beings weren’t built to stay put and relax, they were built to explore their surroundings. Otherwise, they might as well stand naked into the wind and melt into the sun because there’s nothing left for them to do in this life.

Segue

Wow, it’s been a whirlwind. I’ll say this though: don’t pass up any chances you have of visiting the former Yugoslavia because you will most certainly not be disappointed. I didn’t get a chance to post this earlier, but loyal reader Monica sent this in whilst I was away. I have my comment on it in the comment section, where comments belong.

Title: Segways…

Today while walking to the neighborhood market, a middle-aged couple whizzed past my roommate and me on two segways. They were stone-faced, expression-less, as if it was completely normal to see your neighbors riding segways on sidewalks for leisure and we were really surprised. I had heard stories of sales of vespas and motorbikes rising, but I hadn’t seen that segway sales and inquiries have risen too, at rates of 40-50% over the past few years.  

In fact, segways are no longer just for policemen and city workers, but now Jane, Dick and Harry are buying them too. They are also being used by tourists everywhere from Chicago to Zambia, as the tourism community harnesses them for their benefit.  At a cost of $5,000, it is steep for most people, but as gas prices are rising, more and more grow interested. At a cost of approximately 1 cent per mile, it’s cost efficiency is alluring.  They are also convenient to recharge in your home after ever 25 miles. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-06-16-segway_N.htm

Some people say they buy segways to use them instead of their cars, but segways are not completely substitutable for cars for several reasons: a) you have no covering, so riding a segway in bad weather is not advisable, b) there is no storage space on a segway, c) you can only go 12.5 miles, d) they are only made for one person, and e) where the hell do you park a segway securely??? For these reasons, it would not make sense for most people to get rid of all of their cars to buy segways, and thus, segways are best rented by tourists to see cities or bought by affluent singles or couples who can afford to have both segways and at least one car, or for affluent singles or couples living in an urban area where people don’t need cars.

Some people may think segways are great for America to transition to as popularity rises > leading to supply rises > leading to falling prices. This is based on the idea that America will become less dependent on foreign oil. But are segways really good for America? 

The likelihood that men and women in America exercise on any given day, accoring to the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics, is 21 and 16 percent respectively — pretty low rates. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm

If segways are not perfect substitutes for cars, they are more perfect substitutes for walking and biking, two ways in which average Americans who don’t enjoy exercising or who have trouble making time for it are able to expend calories. As my roommate says, “if you can segway, you should be walking or biking anyway,”  based on the argument that segways are only really useful for touring,  novelty purposes, or for traveling relatively short distances, since their speed is only 2-3 times faster than walking and they require use of paths or sidewalks instead of roads. 

People are even riding them through nature trails. On one hand, it is lessening our dependence on foreign oil, but on the other, it is also making a sedative lifestyle easier for some, as they creep into suburbia and start replacing walking and biking. 

Is America doomed to become a nation of overweight segway riders or is this a passing trend like slap-bracelets and razor scooters?

http://www.negotiationlawblog.com/segway.jpg