martes, 8 de septiembre de 2009

GET OVER IT! He is BLACK and he IS the President!







So much for taking kids out of school this morning and exerting pressure on some schools districts to the point of forcing them to not broadcast the President's Back to School 15-minute speech to the children and youth of the United States. So much for the indoctrination and the socialist ideology President Obama instilled to his speech and the unpatriotic, unAmerican things he asked our kids to be and to do.

Succinctly paraphrasing the President: he told the children of this country to be responsible, to demand and expect more of themselves, to be good, honest, hard working citizens and to stay in school and make something positive of themselves and their lives –for their own benefit and the benefit of society as a whole–.

So much, again, for socialist anti-American rhetoric!

To the fear and hate mongers out there –absolutely set to make President Obama into the Bogeyman–: stop the hypocrisy, come clean; be honest, transparent and frontal with yourselves and with the nation.

You do not fear the President's much touted and maligned socialist agenda or his so much talked about –in ultraconservative circles, anyway– 'inexperience' in presidential politics –you know there will never be such thing as true socialism in the United States; and Kennedy was just as inexperienced when he won the Presidency in 1960–.

Instead, you fear and hate the President's blackness; the fact that he is different and a departure from the preconceived idea of what an American President should look like or come from, ethnically and socially speaking. You fear and hate the fact that he is of mixed race –black and white- yet does not conform to the biased societal stereotype that assumes that all black and mixed-race males are lazy, uneducated and rough around the edges. You fear and hate that he –Barack Obama– worked hard and honorably and forged a distinguished professional career, graduating from two of the nation's top universities and ultimately became –by electoral and popular vote– the forty-fourth President of the United States.

You hate that he makes former President George W. Bush look more inadequate, disingenuous and inept than ever before, because now Americans and the world have someone cultured and brilliantly assertive to measure him against. You hate that he makes you look inadequate, disingenuous and inept for having voted for Bush during his two presidential terms and for wishing that he were still the Commander in Chief.

You hate that he doesn't look, act, talk or scratch his butt like Joe the Plumber, who in the end turned out to be a fraud and an embarrassment to the entire Republican Party. You hate that his wife –First Lady Michelle Obama, an accomplished woman in her own right– does not look like Laura Bush, Cindy McCain or Saran Palin. You hate that their two young daughters –Sasha and Malia– are dynamic, well educated, beautiful and poised and make the White House and the Presidency look alive and above all, look good!

I do not agree with every idea and proposal coming from President Obama or from the Obama think tank. I do think and feel, however, that if we the people give him the chance and our support, he will do great things with and for this nation.

For those demeaning, mocking and expressing contempt for President Obama's credentials as being primarily a community organizer before his congressional and presidential aspirations, I say this: the United States is a community and the President –regardless of whom it may be- is its organizer... It is just a larger community that includes the additional burden of having to deal with survivalists, fear mongers, white supremacists and the secret launch codes of a nuclear arsenal.



Bembé



Bembé pa’ todo’ lo’ santo’.

Bembé.

Bembé.

Yemayá trae un vestido

y un caballo de la mar.

Bembé pa’ la dueña de aguas.

Aché.

Oshún viene zalamera

con plumas de pavorreal.

Bembé pa’ la negra linda.

Aché.

Bembé pa’ todo’ lo’ santo’.

Bembé.

Bembé.

Oyá se quita el pañuelo

y se pone a descansar.

Bembé pa’ la de los muertos.

Aché.

Changó y Oggún se disputan

la colmena de Yalorde.

Bembé pa’ los reyes negros.

Aché.

Eleguá viene indicando

con su caña los caminos.

Bembé pa’l viejo que sabe.

Aché.

Ochosi con sus venados

abre el paso a Obatalá.

Bembé pa’ los negros buenos.

Aché.

Bembé y aché pa’ lo’ santo’

que vienen a festejar.

Bembé y aché pa’l santero

que los sabe agasajar.

Olofi trae bajo el brazo

el tablero y el collar.

Bembé pa’l dueño de todo.

Aché.

El tambor está bailando

una danza sin final.

El tambor, tumba que tumba

sin saber cuándo parar.

Bembé pa’ todo’ lo’ santo’.

Bembé.

Bembé.

¡Bembé hasta que amanezca!

¡Aché!




Yemayá y Oshún: las negras más bellas y adoradas de Cuba







Mil perdones, Virgen de Regla, por permitir que el cansancio me hiciera olvidar ayer tu día, 7 de septiembre. Patrona del poblado de Regla y reina absoluta de los mares y en especial, de la Bahía de La Habana. Emperatriz de los cisnes y de todas las criaturas marinas. Yemayá, adorada en todas las gamas del azul, hermana y rival de Oshún, la otra negra regia del Caribe, Patrona de Cuba en su encarnación católica como la Santísima Caridad del Cobre. Diosa del amor, del sensualismo y de los ríos, el color llamativo del oro es su numen y el pavorreal su ave predilecta. Hoy día 8 de septiembre es su día. Que ambas velen por Cuba y su pueblo y que nos otorguen sobre todo mucha salud y paz mental y de espíritu.






Image by FlamingText.com

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Image by FlamingText.com
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La Habana, Cuba, Los Ángeles, Estados Unidos
Nacido en La Habana, Cuba, el 3 de diciembre de 1960. Emigra a Estados Unidos en 1980, a través del éxodo masivo de Mariel. Ganador de numerosos concursos de poesía, literatura y ensayo en Cuba y Estados Unidos. Publica su primer poemario, "Insomnia" en 1988, con gran acogida por parte de la crítica especializada y el público. Considerado por críticos y expertos como uno de los poetas fundamentales y representativos de la llamada Generación del Mariel junto a Reinaldo Arenas, Jesús J. Barquet, Rafael Bordao, Roberto Valero y otros.