this week marks the second anniversary of barack obama's inauguration to the american presidency. i recall that blustery day in january 2008, standing in the freezing cold waiting to be let into the gates on the national mall in washington dc. i was excited and expectant, invested, having helped vote him into office. seven hours later, i was turned back with no luck. and i questioned, on that day, whether a government that could not control a crowd of millions could possibly govern them effectively either. nevertheless, in honor of the occasion, thought i'd repost a couple of my favorite blogs on the matter.

i wrote 'an open letter to michelle obama' 60 days after the inauguration. it's about my hopes and dreams, what it means for all of us to have a black first lady. oddly enough, it's still the most-read post i've ever written--largely by those googling 'michelle obama's legs,' a fact that has alternately amused and horrified me. given the nature of the post, however, it could be an apt subtitle.

and then there's 'climbing uphill' about my pre-election angst over whether or not to join the campaign effort. to be frank, over the past couple of years i've largely distanced myself from the whole thing. hope and change were basic, good ideas that i was all too eager to eat up. the reality on ground has been far more complicated, and has left me feeling horribly naive. though having been in naija almost four months now, during election season, i'm glad that america is a true democracy. the alternatives are far more distressing. --AL.

Wow. Busy weekend. We threw a surprise baby shower for my sis who is expecting her second baby boy in September. Now that we're all grown up, I quite enjoy being able to gist and laugh and be crazy with my family. After the shower was over, we chilled watching (still nonstop) MJ coverage on CNN.


CNN anchor Don Lemon (pictured above) was discussing the wall-to-wall coverage of MJ's untimely death, suggesting it may have helped raise the black consciousness of the American public. The interview was inset by images of the funeral and, scrolling at the bottom of the screen, a ticker tape announcing Soledad O'Brien's Black in America 2. Shortly before the end of the segment, Lemon plugged Anderson Cooper, who would be covering Obama's trip to Ghana, segueing to an African-American filmmaker who documented his ten days in Africa, dropping some "expert" knowledge about pilgrimages to the Motherland.

I am more than speechless at this shift in the media's consciousness. I think we need to ask ourselves: Is it a good thing? I suppose it's a better alternative than no or a few token blacks in the media. But I must admit that I was quite comfortable flying below the radar screen. Now every half wit, pseudo black intellectual is spouting off half-baked theories on class, race, and society, taking cues from the black powers that be.

I think we need to retire some of these pundits (Al Sharpton, for one) and raise a new crop with some real shit to say. This. is. getting. ridiculous.

June 15, 2009

We've come a long way from Deep Impact, with Morgan Freeman as President Tom Beck; or, worse yet, Head of State starring Chris Rock. I'm certainly on the edge of my chair for this one. (And he looks so dayum good on camera. ;)

Barack Obama's reality-show presidency - Ari Melber - POLITICO.com

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A week after my last post, I started a new job at a documentary film company working on a film series about immigration policy. Since 2001, the filmmakers have shot over 1400 hours of behind-the-scenes footage in Washington DC as a concerned, bi-partisan group of Senators, staffers, lobbyists, and advocates tried to push through Comprehensive Immigration Reform. By the end of the series, called My American Dream: How Democracy Works Now, movement toward an overhaul of the nation's immigration system has been soundly thwarted by 9/11 and the overwhelmingly anti-immigrant sentiment left in its wake.

It's a great gig, allowing me to concretize my filmmaking in a way that film school didn't, while also paying the bills. But new jobs always have a way of destabilizing everything else in your life. The first couple of weeks I was sleeping six hours a night so that I could get up early and write from 4-7AM (which turned into 5-7:30AM, then 6-7:30AM and an hour stolen on the subway ride to work), but I felt like such a zombie. So last week I let myself sleep in most of the week and haven't spent time with my characters in over a week now. At the moment, I'm deep in the throes of major writer's guilt.

I'm so blessed for the opportunity, don't get me wrong, but I mos def need to have a draft of my book done in the next couple of months. I have my Hedgebrook residency coming up in October and I've finally decided to go back to film school in the fall (the job is a six-month gig), so I have a bunch of things pulling me in about ten different directions.

So what I really want to impart today is the importance of staying focused on your goals. No matter what jobs, friends, or lovers come and go, you will always be left with yourself and what you're striving for in the world. If you concede those goals to your job, friends, or lovers, you will never reach them. But if you remain stubborn, tenacious, and ambitious, doing whatever it takes to get there, then you will. Even I, who dares to write and finds much less time even to blog, will get there if I keep pushing. I can sleep when the book is done. I can dance then too. And I hope that this is the last time I have to work for anyone other than myself.

By the way, I am finally finishing up Dreams from my Father. After devouring the first 300 pages in a few days, I have been savoring the last hundred or so pages, like slow sipping an aged wine, for the past month. I suppose I just like Barack in Kenya, identify with that same shift in consciousness that hits me each time I return to Nigeria. Brilliant writer, that man is.