Bukan sekedar sahabat

Dipublikasi pada 08/04/2010 oleh riswan

Apakah arti sahabat bagimu? Seberapa pentingkah mereka bagi hidup kita? Dan bagaimanakah cara kita menjaga persahabatan? Terkadang kita lupa bahwa sahabat adalah bagian penting dalam hidup kita. Saat kita dalam masa-masa sulit, mereka menguatkan kita, menemani kita dan menghibur kita agar tetap tegar dan kuat menjalani rintangan kehidupan. Kehadirannya selalu memberi terang dalam hari-hari kelam yang kita hadapi. obat jerawat

Perkenalkan sahabat dexter, yaitu Renjana Paradifa atau biasa dipanggil dengan difa atau Jana. Dialah sahabat yang benar-benar yang terbaik diantara yang terbaik,, memberi warna dan sentuhan yang berbeda dalam hidup dexter. Difa adalah sahabat yang menawarkan hati untuk sms lebaran mendengarkan, sentuhan lembut untuk menguatkan, dan kata-kata kebaikan yang menyejukkan. Meskipun terkadang Difa hanya memberi satu kata, sabar.

Hari ini dia Ultah yang ke 22 tahun. Teman-teman dexter yang suka baca blog ini, ucapkanlah sepatah kata kepada Difa, sahabatku ini. Meskipun kalian nggak kenal, tapi belive me, Difa sudah gua anggap seperti saudara sendiri. Begitu kuatnya tali persahabatan kami hingga sekarang memang tidak bisa dipungkiri. Sahabat dari SMP, teman bermain, hingga satu kota kuliah bareng dan satu rumah. puisi cinta

Berbeda dengan ultah-ultah yang telah lewat, perayaan kali ini cukup sederhana. Hanya makan di salah satu mal, bersama orang-orang yang disayanginnya, yaitu Diaz dan karin sebagai adiknya. Dexter termasuk loh, hehehe dan ada beberapa sahabat yang hadir juga kala itu Ariza Sauki, Ipul, Tomy sahabat Diaz dan Fuad kekasih Karin.

Gua rela melakukan apa saja untuk sahabat atas penghargaannya kepada gua selama ini. Karena dialah, ortu Difa mau mengajak dexter kuliah di Semarang, termasuk semua biaya-biaya hidup semuanya di tanggung oleh keluarganya. Perlakuannya, kasih sayang ortunya kepada dexter sama halnya dengan perlakuan kepada anak-anaknya. Tak jarang, dexter merasa seperti berutang budi dengan keluarga ini. Tapi bukan itu semua yang ingin gua katakan mengapa Difa adalah sahabat sejati dexter. Tapi hatilah yang menjawab itu semua.

Diaz, adik terbungsu membacakan doa saat ultah kakaknya di tempat makan yang bernuasa pemandangan kota di malam hari. Meskipun dengan terbata-bata dan menggunakan bahasa Indonesia, Diaz berharap doanya akan terkabul . Dexter dan sahabat-sahabat juga berniat yang sama, yaitu Difa lebih bersemangat lagi dalam kehidupan ini, terutama kuliahnya.

Pernahkah kita berterimakasih kepada mereka? Dengan inilah, rasa ungkapan dengan cara istimewa dan kado yang paling istimewa, gua berikan untuk difa. Ungkapan yang diambil dari dalam hati akan menjadi sarana yang sempurna untuk menyatakan “terimakasih untuk kesetiaanmu menemani dan menampung seluruh hidup dan keluh kesah kehidupanku”…

Masih banyak tugas yang sampai saat ini masih belum dexter lakukan untuk Difa. Dexter tahu dan memang tahu, apa yang dipikirkan orang banyak mengenai dia. Tapi kata semangat saja tidak cukup untuk mengeluarkan Difa dari jurang kesuraman dirinya. Butuh energi dan waktu lebih banyak lagi agar dia mampu mengerti semua kehidupan dunia ini yang begitu keras.

Momen foto-foto dan bercengkerama bersama saudara dan sahabat tadi tidak akan terlupakan. Dalam sebuah gambar akan merekam kejadian yang luar biasa kelak suatu hari bila puing-puing keruntuhan menerpa kita. Hanya momen-momen tersebutlah yang akan memberikan kita semangat kelak.

Berfoto bareng setelah makan

Dex, ya,,ada apa? Saya tahu kamu mempunyai beban yang tidak mudah untuk dilaksanakan. Gimana pesan ortunya Difa saat memberangkatkan kamu ke Semarang dulu, Rubahlah Difa dan temanin dia untuk mencari jalan lurus. Meskipun jatuh bangun dan harus masuk ke lubang yang hitam, gua rela ko asal Difa mau berubah. Sekali lagi gua gagal, tapi inilah perjuangan dan target yang harus dikejar. Semangat ya dex!

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Pengangguran Nomor Satu

Dipublikasi pada 07/18/2010 oleh riswan

Siapa yang tak kenal dengan PNS, mereka yang selalu menggunakan pakaian dinas yang di beli oleh negara dengan uang rakyat yang dimaksudkan untuk mengurusi kepentingan rakyat. PNS merupakan singkatan dari pegawai negeri sipil. Bertugas mengurusi kepentingan rakyat, mulai dari hal-hal kecil sampai kepada hal-hal yang besar. Mulai dari urusan dalam negeri sampai urusan luar negeri. Mereka mengemban amanat rakyat untuk  surat cinta menyejahterakan rakyat, bukan menyengsarakan rakyat.  Download Point Blank Game Gratis

Kali ini kita tidak menguraikan PNS sebagai Pegawai Negeri Sipil, tapi sebagai Pengangguran Nomor Satu. Kenapa hal ini perlu, karena masalah pengangguran ini merupakan masalah yang sangat krusial di negara kita. Dimana angkatan kerja semakin bertambah sementara lapangan kerja semakin sulit.

Menjadi pengangguran itu disebabkan oleh beberapa hal. Bisa karena keinginan untuk menganggur, lowongan kerja tidak ada, dan karena PHK alias pemutusan hubungan kerja. Sebab nomor dua dan nomor tiga ini tak ingin di bahas karena sudah sering di bahas. Saya hanya ingin berbagi pemikiran tentang masalah pertama yaitu karena ingin menganggur. Cara Mengecilkan Perut

Menganggur itu sebuah pilihan bagi kita. Mau atau tidak maunya kita bekerja ditentukan oleh diri kita sendiri. Hal ini tentu mengandung konsekwensi bagi diri kita khususnya dan lingkungan pada umumnya. Terlebih lagi bila kita sudah memiliki tanggungan, seperti istri dan anak. Walaupun secar pribadi, kita bertanggung jawab atas diri kita, tapi karena ia merupakan pilihan maka implikasi secara pribadi sepertinya terabaikan. Namun tak jarang keluarga, dalam hal ini orang tua dan saudar seringkali risih dengan kita yang masih belum juga bekerja. Persoalannya bukan pada lapangan kerja, tapi lebih kepada sikap mental kita sendiri. Pendidikan tinggi, tenaga kuat, pikiran cerdas merupakan modal dalam bekerja. Cara Download Video You Tube

Cobalah kita perhatikan lingkungan sekitar kita, begitu banyak hal yang bisa kita kerjakan. Memandang rumput yang bergoyang, atau seungguk sampah yang terabaikan, serta melihat sebatang lidi yang terpampang di depan mata kita, bisa menjadi lahan pekerjaan. Bagi yang biasa dengan kretivitas, tak ada yang sia-sia. Tapi bagi yang memiliki mental lemah hal itu tak memberikan arti apa-apa. Begitu luas dan banyaknya lahan yang tersedia dari Sabang sampai Merauke, mau dimana saja kita tinggal, kapan saja kita mau berbuat peluang itu ada. Disinilah letaknya mental dan kretivitas kita. Cara Membuat Anak Pintar

Bagi yang sengaja menganggur bukan berarti karena tak ada lowongan kerja, tapi sengaja untuk tidak bekerja. Saya melihat fenomena ini di negeri kita ini. Banyak angkatan kerja kita yang sengaja tidak bekerja. Mereka memiliki sumberdaya yang cukup untuk melakukan sebuah pekerjaan, tentu pekerjaan yang akan menghasilkan nilai tambah secara ekonomi. Menjadi penjual es, tukang sol dan semir sepatu sepatu, pemulung, dan pekerjaan lainnya merupakan pekerjaan yang akan menghasilkan keuntungan secara ekonomi, asal tidak diertai dengan tindakan yang justru melawan hukum seperti mencuri. Mungkin karena sudah terbiasa, dari pada menjadi pemulung lebih baik menganggur. Hal seperti ini merupakan hambatan terbesar bagi kemajuan negara kita dalam bidang ekonomi. Semua menunggu pekerjaan besar dengan gaji besar dan fasilitas besar. Sangat sedikit yang memulainya dari hal kecil, dan hasil yang kecil. cara membuat anak
Fenomena pengiriman TKI merupakan sesuatu yang perlu dpertanyakan. Apakah dinegara ini kita tidak bisa mendapatkan pekerjaan dan penghasilan yang besar ? Atau menjadi TKI itu hanya karena ingin bepergian ke negeri orang, walaupun saat disana mendapatkan perlakuan yang tak senonoh. Negara kita adalah negara yang sangat kaya. Kaya akan sumberdaya alam dan sumberdaya manusia. Tak perlu pergi jauh-jauh untuk mendapatkan pekerjaan, cukup di sini saja, di Indonesia yang kita cintai ini. Bolehlah kita pergi ke luar negeri hanya untum melancong dan berwisata saja. Kita tidak hanya sebatas menjadi tenaga kerja di negeri kita sendiri, tapi bisa membuka lapangan kerja yang lebih luas bagi segenap anak bangsa yang ingin bekerja. Apa yang kurang dengan kita ? Video Anak-anak Lucu

Pengangguran Nomor Satu yang diplesetkan dari PNS hendaknya menjadi cambuk bagi kita semua untuk melakukan kerja apa saja yang penting halal. Mungkin hasilnya tidak langsung dilihat pada saat ini, tapi yakinlah bahwa suatu saat pasti akan ada hasil yang lebih besar dari yang kita duga

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Polisi Bukan Institusi Lingkungan Hidup

Dipublikasi pada 07/09/2010 oleh riswan

Hari Minggu lalu, Pihak kepolisian memobilisasi “Rakyat Biasa” untuk ikut berpartisipasi dalam acara Sepeda santai dan tanam pohon dalam rangka memperingati Hari Ulang Tahun BAYANGKARA yang ke 64. saya tiba-tiba teringat dengan kawanku yang bernama Irmal yang sekarang bermukim di Kota Makassar. Dia sangat membenci prilaku polisi yang kadang tidak professional menghadapi “rakyat biasa”. Cerita kebencian Irmal dengan polisi terungkap melalui pertemuanku beberapa bulan yang lalu di Kota Daeng. download Pb

Kebencian terhadap pihak kepolisian dalam diri Irmal, dimulai sejak bergulirnya kasus Kriminalisasi KPK yang terkenal dengan CICAK VS BUAYA. Kasus yang melibatkan Anggodo sebagai pemodal dengan enaknya menciptakan konflik antara Pihak kepolisian dengan KPK. Anggodo bekerjasama dengan pihak kepolisian menggunakan uang untuk menghancurkan Institusi Anti Korupsi tersebut. Perjuangan Irmal bersama kawan kawannya mencapai titik puncaknya pada Peringatan Hari Anti Korupsi, bulan Desember tahun 2009 lalu. cara

Kasus kedua, Saat terjadi protes kasus BANK CENTURY yang melibatkan menteri keuangan Sri Mulyani dan wakil presiden Budiono serta Partai Demokrat yang dianggap sebagai dalang dari drama untuk menggunakan sebagai dana kampanye PEMILU 2009 yang lalu.

Pada waktu itu, Kota Makassar sebagai pusat gerakan besar besaran berusaha untuk dijinakkan oleh pihak kepolisian bekerjasama dengan preman kampung yang mengatasnamakan diri masyarakat anti Mahasiswa. Irmal melihat dengan mata kepalanya mobilisasi preman yang dilakukan oleh pihak kepolisian. Tujuan mobilisasi preman untuk melakukan tindakan represif terhadap gerakan mahasiswa didepan Kampus Universitas Islam Negeri (UIN), Jalan Sultan Alauddin, Makassar.

Tindakan represif pihak kepolisian terhadap mahasiswa, bukan pertama kali terjadi di Makassar. Sewaktu Yusuf Maggabarani menjabat sebagai Kapolda SULSELBAR (Sekarang WAKAPOLRI) penyerangan kampus dilakukan sebanyak dua kali yakni penyerangan kampus Universitas Hasanuddin dan penyerangan kampus Universitas Muslim Indonesia (UMI). Dalam kasus penyerangan di Kampus UMI korban dari pihak mahasiswa mencapai ratusan orang. “Tindakan represif polisi terhadap aksi demonstrasi mahasiswa merupakan prilaku yang menandakan bahwa polisi sebagai penjaga kekuasaan, bukan penjaga keamanan dan ketertiban untuk menciptakan kedamaian dinegeri tercinta”

Kasus ketiga, Saat Irmal melihat polisi dari POLWILTABES Makassar melakukan razia senjata tajam di Pantai Losari. Dia mengamati tindakan Polisi Lalu Lintas yag meminta pembeli rokok dan pulsa kepada “rakyat biasa”. Kekecewaan Irmal muncul setelah dia melogikakan akal pikirannya bahwa razia senjata tajam yang dilakukan oleh pihak kepolisian dialihkan oleh oknum polisi lalu lintas untuk mendapatkan uang receh dari rakyat biasa. Kata Irmal “Polisi Lalu Lintas seperti pengemis berseragam saja, yang berdiri dipinggir jalan”

Kasus keempat, Kasus yang lagi marak sekarang ini yakni kasus REKENING GENDUT PERWIRA POLISI yang melibatkan Majalah Tempo. Simbol Sampul majalah Tempo bukannya ditanggapi dingin oleh pihak kepolisian untuk mengusut tuntas korupsi diinternalnya, melainkan mencari pembenaran dan berusaha untuk memenjarakan sikap kritis wartawan terhadap fenomena social yang terjadi dengan menuntut Redaksi Tempo. download you tube

Jawaban yang konkrit seperti diatas saya dapatkan berbulan-bulan, dia hanya menjawab sepotong-sepotong atau jawabannya tidak tuntas, kemudian dia lanjutkan dengan cerita lucu yang terkait dengan Polisi.

Setelah mengamati kegiatan yang dilakukan oleh pihak kepolisian dengan melibatkan unsur masyarakat kurang lebih 200 ribu se-Indonesia untuk kampanye lingkungan dan kesehatan, saya mengambil hp yang tersimpan dalam kamar untuk telepon Irmal meminta pandangannya.

Jawaban Irmal pada saat saya hubungi melalui telepon “Tidak cukup melakukan pencitraan dihadapan “rakyat biasa” dengan kegiatan tanam pohon dan sepeda santai” cara

“Seharusnya Hari Jadi POLRI dijadikan ajang untuk membuktikan dirinya sebagai institusi penegak hokum. Kegiatan kampanye Lingkungan harus disertai dengan kegiatan yang terkait dengan hokum seperti Pengumuman pelaku pembalakan liar dan pembakaran hutan serta Industri yang merusak lingkungan. Selain itu, perlu juga dipublikasikan dampak UTANG Perubahan Iklim terhadap kehidupan rakyat biasa di Indonesia”.

Terkhir Irmal mengatakan “Polisi Bukan Institusi Lingkungan Hidup. kayak pengalihan isu saja untuk melepaskan tanggung jawabnya sebagai penegak hukum”.

Kegiatan kampanye Lingkungan dan kesehatan yang melibatkan unsur masyarakat merupakan langkah awal pihak kepolisian untuk menciptakan relasi yang mapan. Bukan relasi yang seperti dalam pikiran IVAN BRIMOB “POLISI TIDAK MEMBUTUHKAN MASYARAKAT”.

Semoga strategi hegemoni yang diciptakan oleh pihak kepolisian bukan hanya kesadaran palsu untuk menciptakan pencitraan semata yang sifatnya sesat. Tetapi lebih giat lagi untuk melayani masyarakat dan memperbaiki internalnya yang selama ini dianggap bobrok oleh sebagian masyarakat Indonesia.

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CHEAP SHOPPING MENS CLOTHING AND WOMEN,S CLOTHING ON SHOPWIKI.COM

Dipublikasi pada 01/21/2010 oleh riswan

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Why Black Comics Must Get Barack

Dipublikasi pada 12/11/2009 oleh riswan

Fade back to 1983. Reaganomics has black America in a stranglehold, unemployment is running rampant, and my sisters and I have snuck into the basement after lights out to watch Eddie Murphy, clad in a skintight red leather outfit, tell dirty jokes. Eddie says he saw Jesse Jackson working out at the gym now that he’s running for president. He says he saw him running laps on the track.

“Why you working out?” Eddie asks Jesse.

“I gotta be in shape,” Jesse replies. “Because when I give my first speech, it will be like this.” And then Eddie darts across stage, a blur of red leather ducking and dodging, weaving and bobbing so that the sniper rifle can’t get a read on him.

Speed up a bit to 2000. Dave Chappelle is at the Lincoln Theatre in D.C., and I am in the balcony with a friend who smuggled in beers in her purse. Dave says he doesn’t want to be the first black president. Maybe the second or the third, but definitely not the first. Well, on second thought, he could be the first, but he would have a Mexican vice president for insurance.

Black president: both joke and punch line. Black president: an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. For a long time, comedians have riffed on what having a black president would actually mean … as if that would ever happen. That if it did, there would be cookouts on the White House lawn, which would have no grass, a broken-down car sitting on bricks and an old weight set in the driveway.

It was always a fantasy, about as realistic as the Loch Ness Monster, mythical in proportion and scope. The futility of the idea was a reflection of the weight of the past and pessimism about the future. Imagine a black president and fill in the rest with stereotypes and tragedy, because there is a grain of truth in both.

The jokes didn’t land on any one person, so there was no harm. That they never would was the ultimate punch line.

We have become accustomed to using humor to push through the burdens of blackness, says Darryl Littleton, author of Black Comedians on Black Comedy: How African-Americans Taught Us to Laugh. Even in bondage, humor helped lighten the load of slavery. “Slaves that didn’t have the commonality of language would use pantomime to make fun of the slave owners,” Littleton said.

Humor has always been a painfully real thing for black America. It’s been a balm both to the hurtful reality of our place in America and the insufferable parts of our past. Jokes about being followed in a department store or being pulled over by the police, or not being able to hail a cab are funny because they connect the past and present struggle.

So what kind of reception should President-elect Barack Obama expect from the comedy world? Should we be on watch for tasteless racial innuendo? Or do we need to guard against being hypersensitive?

Comedian Katt Williams says black comedians won’t hold back.

Littleton agreed. “We comics unleash,” he says. “There won’t be too many things left unsaid. If he messes up, we won’t leave any meat on the bone. Truthfully, for comics, it would have been better if [John] McCain won. The worst choice is always better for us.”

The New Yorker Thelma and Lousie’d its magazine cover off the edge of comedic satire when it depicted Obama and his wife, Michelle, as Osama-loving-terrorist-fist-bumping Muslims. And Carlos Mencia, in a bit about as funny as a wet sock, dresses himself as the president in black face and afro and talks in that grating black dialect made famous by whites. Mencia’s stereotypical notion of blackness was framed by perceptions about how whites see blacks. But even the idea of a collectively clueless white mass seems quaint now that tens of millions of them voted for a man named Barack Hussein Obama.

Carlos Mencia’s routine crosses over the funny line in the same way as The New Yorker magazine cover because it isn’t edgy political humor or even a well thought-out skit. It is simply taking trash bags full of ignorance and generalizations and dumping them onto Obama because of his race.

For the comics themselves, Obama poses a conundrum. “He’s not stupid, he’s not angry, he’s not fat. Who would want a jerk like that in office?” Bill Maher joked on “Larry King Live” after the election. “We need to get over our nervousness about making a joke about a black person. Obama isn’t black, he is the president. And when we make fun of him, we aren’t making fun of all black people in the same way when we make fun of George W. Bush, it isn’t like we are talking about all mentally challenged people. But he has got to give us something to joke about.”

One place that comedians can look back on for guidance into the future of comedy is the late, great Richard Pryor. In 1977, on the short-lived “Richard Pryor Show,” he does a skit in which he walks out as the first black president and fields questions from the press.

President Pryor explains that the 5 percent unemployment rate only reflects that of whites and that the minority unemployment rate has always been around 45 percent. He thinks that the increase in the space program funding will help send blacks to space, “…white people have been going to space and spacing out on us. …”

He declares that Huey Newton will be in contention for director of the FBI since he knows the ins and outs. That there will always be black players in the National Football League and that if he can help it, there will be black coaches and owners, too. The skit ends with a white reporter asking President Pryor about his mother being a maid. “After your tenure, will yo mama do my house?” The bit ends with Pryor rushing from the podium and charging for the man.

The skit has everything in it that comedy can be: brash-abrasive-cultivated nuance that illuminates the struggles of being both black and president.

For the next four years, America will learn to adjust to a new punch line.

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Why White Comics Don't Get Barack

Dipublikasi pada 12/11/2009 oleh riswan

A black president. Now that’s funny!

So why are so many political satirists crying about how unamusing the Obama presidency will be? The standard reasoning is that, unlike Bush, McCain, Palin, the Clintons or even Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama is “too perfect” and does not provide material for good jokes. But the inability of “Saturday Night Live” to produce one hilarious sketch on the Obamas has little to do with the quality of comedic material Michelle or Barack offer. It has more to do with the fact that mainstream American comedy has been, for far too long, racially segregated and has relied on two formulas in dealing with black people: one is racial stereotyping and the second is black invisibility.

Both the right and the left used stereotypes in their attempts to satirize African Americans during this past election season. Most egregious was a mailing by the Chaffey Community of Republican Women’s Group, which included faux “food stamps” with the image of Obama surrounded by images of watermelons and fried chicken. This sort of imagery dates back to D.W. Griffith’s racist 1915 film Birth of a Nation in which newly elected black senators run the federal government into the ground and litter the floors of the Capitol with chicken bones. The members of the Chaffey Community group defended their actions by saying it was simply satire.

The satire defense was also deployed by the liberal New Yorker magazine when it donned Barry Blitt’s cover of the Afro-sporting, gun-toting Michelle Obama and the turban-wearing Barack Obama back in July. In both cases, the racial stereotyping was so obvious that it produced loud public outcries.

For obvious reasons, the invisibility problem generates less outrage, but it is equally dangerous.

Each week, as I watched actor Fred Armisen imitate Barack Obama on SNL, I tried to figure out why I did not laugh. Armisen has Obama’s cadence and facial expressions down pat, but as Kelefa Sanneh noted in the New Yorker, there is no “back story” to this character. Likewise, when Maya Rudolph temporarily returned to play Michelle Obama, the skit between Michelle and Barack Obama was successful, not because it has anything to do with the personalities or personas of Michelle and Barack, but because anyone singing “Solid as Barack” to the Ashford and Simpson tune, “Solid as a Rock” is funny.

It’s not just that SNL does not give a back story to the Obamas or that a non-African-American actor plays Barack Obama; it is that these skits miss the complexities, contradictions and the interior features of African-Americans lives. On SNL and other mainstream political comedy shows like “Real Time” and to a lesser extent “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” the cast and writing staffs lack diversity, and it shows in the racial parochialism of the humor itself.

Perhaps Bill Maher was right when he said that Barack Obama leads to bad comedy because he is “too perfect” as a presidential candidate and that “liberals” and “comedians” (both of whom in Maher’s calculations all appear to be white) are “afraid of laughing at anything with a black person in it.” But, I think it goes deeper than that.

For such comics to consider Barack or Michelle funny, one of two things now has to happen: Either the Obamas must begin to feed into prevailing racial stereotypes (and therefore be seen as unfit for the presidency), or mainstream satirists will have to learn the cultural nuances of black America.

This would include not simply making fun of how white CNN pundits developed a media crush on Obama, but lampooning, as one YouTube skit shows, how Obama preps his swagger before each debate. SNL focuses on Obama’s intellect and verbal pauses but does not satirize his performance of the “cool” black man. Understanding both his swagger and cool requires an understanding of black bourgeois respectability, not just in opposition to caricatures of working-class blacks but as a source of potential contradictions and comedy.

There is a great debate about whether CNN’s “D.L. Hughley Breaks the News” and David Allen Grier’s variety show “Chocolate News” on Comedy Central are funny or offensive. The verdict is still out. I can’t help but wonder what kind of cathartic laughter Dave Chappelle would have been able to provide for us this year.

Imagine what he would have done with Jeremiah Wright or Barack’s unannounced visits to the home of white undecided voters in Ohio. It’s not that Barack and Michelle aren’t funny; it’s just that those who have been able to thrive in a predominantly white comedic universe will now have to hire more writers and actors (and hopefully producers and directors) who know how to work with the material that Barack and Michelle will serve up. If they are going to stay on top of their games over the next four years, white comedians and comic writers will have to acknowledge black interior lives and class and ethnic diversity. Then we’ll all have something to laugh about.

Salamishah Tillet is an assistant professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder of the non-profit organization, A Long Walk Home, Inc., which uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to document and to end violence against underserved women and children.

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5 Obama Hair Don'ts

Dipublikasi pada 12/11/2009 oleh riswan

Our 44th president can change many things in the next four years–his hair isn’t one of them. The high-top fade worked for Kid, and we love Charles Barkley’s shiny chrome dome. We even have a soft spot for James Brown’s process. But sadly, none of these beloved styles can make the cut in the White House.

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A Thank You Note to White Voters

Dipublikasi pada 12/11/2009 oleh riswan

While dodging those pigs I said would fly before a black man got elected president, I got to thinking about just who black folks had to thank for Barack Obama’s historic achievement.

Obama and his brilliant staff are, of course, at the top of the list for mounting what was arguably the best presidential campaign in American political history.

And then there was our army of black voters who turned out in huge numbers and voted almost unanimously for our man.

But amid all our justified hooping and hollering, there’s one group that I fear will not get its fair share of the credit for its essential contribution to this sweeping victory, a group we’re more accustomed to blaming for all our woes than thanking for our progress.
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I am talking, of course, about white folks.

Yes, white folks, the ones we thought would lie to pollsters about supporting Obama then pull the lever for his white opponent.

Not the majority of white folks, who voted for John McCain, but the millions upon millions of other white people, open minded and decent enough to give the brother a chance.

They deserve a big hand.

Of the 64 million votes Obama collected, the largest tally in history, by far the largest share were cast by white voters.

He racked up 43 percent of the white vote, equaling Bill Clinton’s performance and easily surpassing Al Gore and John Kerry.

Without those white folks, Obama would have lost the election.

Obama knew that all along. He knew that there are not enough black and minority voters to win an election unless a substantial number of whites join in. That’s why he downplayed racial issues throughout the campaign, focusing instead on a message of change that appealed to voters of every variety.

But his strategy would not have succeeded unless enough white voters were willing to look beyond his color and hear his message.

They were, and they did.

When I predicted in mid-September that the days when Republicans could win elections by stirring up white resentments were finally gone, some blacks thought I was being hopelessly naïve.

But as I wrote then, this is no longer the America that John McCain, Jesse Jackson and I grew up in. Coded racist appeals have lost much of their potency, especially among the young and the well-educated.

I don’t want to go overboard about this because most white voters still backed the Republicans. Some of them fell for McCain and Sarah Palin’s okey-doke because prejudice and reactionary thinking continue to play powerful roles in our politics, and they are not going away.

But that bad news should not diminish our gratitude for the white folks who had the courage and insight to cross the color line and join Obama’s cause.

They helped him to recreate the sort of multiracial coalition that Martin Luther King Jr. led to the greatest triumphs of the civil rights movement.

Because of them, Obama was swept into the White House in what some regard as the greatest moment in black history since the Emancipation.

Because of them, Obama may have a chance to shape a political realignment as dramatic as the Reagan revolution, though moving in the opposite political direction.

So thank you, white folks!

We couldn’t have done it without you.

Now, could you lend us a hand with these flying pigs?

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Free Our Minds

Dipublikasi pada 12/11/2009 oleh riswan

I thought a lot on Election Day about limitations, how we as Americans agreed both explicitly and implicitly, from the nation’s founding, that a black man would never become president. Masters certainly knew it. And from the wretched status to which they were consigned, the slaves no doubt could scarcely imagine it.

Yet, in a political campaign that began with most African Americans pooh-poohing the possibility that whites would vote for a black man and with large numbers of whites suddenly ready to do just that, Barack Obama tapped into the perfect historic moment of cross-racial yearning.

It has left me feeling bittersweet at what came before, for I have been forced to admit a truth to myself about racism and its limiting impact. I realized, quite sadly, that I had dutifully voted every four years for a parade of white male presidential candidates while scarcely lamenting the fact that this office remained the hardest, highest, most coveted barrier against the full and unfettered participation of non-whites in our political system.

Because I never believed that white voters would elevate a person of color to the presidency in my lifetime, I had in effect accepted the “whites-only” rule of the presidency. I’m embarrassed to say: What a triumph of racism!
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So I think it is only fitting to “unpack” this idea of limitations, to dissect this thing that will, of course, still plague us but that now will lack its old power.

Let’s face it. Racial limitations have defined our psyches as Americans. For African Americans especially, we have always had to consider the limits of our personal and collective ambitions; to think about just how far we could and could not expect to excel in a nation where racism has been so historically present. Without such calculation, it would have been impossible just to survive.

The slave had to know the physical limits of the plantation and had to know how to circumscribe his behavior to avoid the lash. After slavery, we had to be damned certain to understand the limits of our so-called freedom, especially when Reconstruction turned to ethnic cleansing and Jim Crow was let loose on the land.

Later, in the modern era, we had to know when voting would be deadly—the ultimate limitation. And we had to know how hard to push, to fight, to secure our rights, to test the limits of America’s promise. We risked the blows that took too many lives, until, at last, we won full rights in the 1960s. We were protected by the Constitution. And we could vote—for whomever we chose, black or white.

And yet, we always knew that the ultimate prize of our political system was off-limits. Not by law, not by decree, but by long-held custom. Shirley Chisholm ran. Jesse Jackson ran. But white America (and back then such a monolithic group was far more real than today) wasn’t having it. Racism was its limitation.

Before Barack Obama, everyone I know did not expect to see a president of color in our lifetime. We had grown accustomed to the racial limitations of these United States. We could attend college, get good jobs, send our kids to private schools, purchase large homes, write high literature, become sports superstars, Hollywood icons and CEOs. But president? Get real.

Obama has proved us wrong.

Perhaps he had not been jaded in the way that so many other African Americans have been because of our experience with limitations. Obama grew up differently. Yes, he knew of racist barriers, and, yes, he experienced racism in his life, we learn from his memoir, Dreams of My Father.

But although he embraces African-American identity and culture, he is a biracial person whose black Kenyan father was absent and who was raised by his white American mother and grandparents. He would not have absorbed the parental racial angst like so many of the rest of us, hearing our parents’ message, whether subtle or overt, about what white folks wouldn’t let us do.

And he is not a descendant of slaves—at least not here in America, though one can’t discount the possibility that Obama’s Kenyan ancestors were raided perhaps by Arab or other slave traders who once pillaged that region of Africa. If such a history exists and Obama, who grew up with little contact with the Kenyan side of his family, is aware of it, he has not publicly discussed it.

Because of this different kind of background, he would not know that deep well of unspoken African-American pain passed down since slavery days, from generation to generation. Such cultural knowledge is both a strength, and, at times, a source of self-limitation that only compounds the corrosive effect of the limits imposed on us by white society.

And one of the most heartbreaking effects of self-limitation is its atrophying impact on young African Americans. Why try, if I’m only going to face racism? Why venture beyond my cultural comfort zone if they (the big white they) don’t want me there?

What Obama’s candidacy and victory prove is that they, too, have changed; they, too, have broken through some barriers. Like the elderly white man wearing the huge Obama button who recently approached me in the parking lot of the local grocery store. Tapping his big button, he asked: “You gonna vote for my guy?” I said, “For sure!” And as we chatted a bit about the campaign, he touched my arm and said: “You know, I was raised in Arkansas and everything was segregated. I am so proud to be able to vote for an African American.” I felt proud, too, to be able to experience such a moment. To witness a barrier falling, a limitation being let go.

My Election Day bitter sweetness has passed. I now marvel at all the cross-racial jubilation washing over the nation and the new dialogues about race and country that Obama’s victory has sparked. In an e-mail evoking the spirit of South Africa’s first democratic election, a friend in Johannesburg wrote, “Yesterday we woke up yet again (the last time being April, 1994, for me) to a new world filled with promise.”

Quietly, privately, through years of defensive bluster and agitation about race, I have longed for a time like this—a new American dawning. I am holding on tight to this precious, precious moment.

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Upholding Our End

Dipublikasi pada 12/11/2009 oleh riswan

The landslide election of Barack Obama represents something extraordinary—but not just because our president-elect has brown skin.

What is equally extraordinary is the rainbow-colored, mass movement that consolidated itself to catapult him into the White House.

Even as we celebrate the phenomenon that is Obama, let us not lose sight of an even bigger phenomenon—that of the American people, waking up and taking history into their own hands.

I will confess: This perspective can be hard to maintain. Sometimes a surfer is so brilliant, skilled and mesmerizing that one fails to even see the giant current that propels him. And yet as thrilling as the best surfers are, they ride massive, thundering waves that are even more awe-inspiring.

In Obama’s case, the beautiful “wave” that he is riding is—us! The media see the massive crowds he draws and simply calls us “Obama supporters.” We are. But we are also much more than that.

We are a massive “pro-democracy movement” that rose up to terminate the corrupt, authoritarian rule of George W. Bush’s GOP. And Barack Obama himself would be the first to admit that our “people’s movement” to rescue America did not start with his campaign.

And it must not end with his election.

Our movement was born in the dark and difficult days after 9/11, when national leaders twisted our sobs of grief into a cry for war. Some of us opposed the war drive from the beginning, but we were too few and our voices too faint to make a difference.

But we were the seed that blossomed into full flower as a global, anti-war movement, when the United States threatened Iraq with invasion. When we failed to block the invasion, that movement poured itself into the 2004 presidential election opposing Bush. We came within 100,000 votes in Ohio of unseating a wartime president—without a sophisticated Web site and with very little money.

After enduring the horrors and hardships of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, our movement in 2006 finally ended one-party, authoritarian rule—giving the Congress back to the Democrats for the first time in 14 years.

Obama looked out and saw the transformative power of this broad, deep, determined and hopeful people’s movement. He saw us struggling to restore the country’s democratic principles, bring our troops home and revive the nation’s standing in the world. He was insightful enough to see in our dynamism and momentum the basis for an audacious run for the highest office in the land. And he plunged in. The rest is history.

Viewed in this light, our movement’s liberation of the White House is only the final act in a seven-year process of restoring the rule of law to the United States. We shouldn’t only be proud of Obama. We should also be proud of ourselves.

Barack Obama did something more important and profound than make history: He gave an awakening American people the chance to make history—and we rose to the challenge.

Let’s keep rising.

Just as the president-elect must now “transition” from being a first-term senator to the leader of the whole country, our movement must transition. Our challenge now is to move from eight years of opposition to eight years of proposition. We must shift from protest to governance. And it’s is a tough challenge.

But it is one we can meet—if we stay engaged, stay informed, stay involved and keep pushing for change. We can’t stop now—not with wars still waging, the economy still imploding, schools still failing and greenhouse gases still accumulating in the atmosphere. We will continue to need Obama. And Obama will continue to need us—now more than ever.

We can’t go back to pre-crisis mode any more than he can. We would be outraged if he celebrated at the inauguration, thanked everyone and then just went back to his old pre-election life. We would all start screaming and say, “Hold on now! You have a lot of work you need to do before you get to sit back down. The election is the beginning, not the end, of our work of fixing this country!”

Well, we should say the same thing to each other and to ourselves.

The fact that our pro-democracy movement predated and made possible Obama’s victory in no way diminishes the achievements, genius or promise of the once-in-a-lifetime leader. He has not even taken office—but already, he is a living legend, a defining American icon. He is destined to stand in the company of Dr. Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers, if not George Washington and Nelson Mandela. He is the only living person whose name is certain to be on the lips of school children 200 years from now.

But if we think back to the civil rights era, the movement could not have succeeded as spectacularly without Dr. King’s particular gifts and contributions. And King could not have succeeded without the millions of unnamed civil rights workers and supporters who collectively broke the back of Jim Crow segregation. Dr. King and the movement needed each other and propelled each other to greatness.

It is my deepest hope and most fervent prayer that Barack Obama and the American people will, too, propel each other to greatness. Let’s make sure that we, the people, uphold our end of the bargain.

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