For white Americans, things aren't what they used to be

This article, "For white Americans, things aren't what they used to be," in The Mail & Guardian, brought up enough interesting points for two commenters to feel obliged to trash it. When I tried to comment, and disagree with them, my comment did not appear. So here it is.

The two commenters said, and I quote: 'Surely saying "George Bush doesn't care about black people." is tantamount to calling George Bush a racist? It's the same thing no? 'Black people' refers to all black people so in my books Kanye West called George Bush a racist.'
and
'This article is nonsense. American discontent has nothing to do with Obamas skin colour. American discontent has everything to do with Obamas [sic] non-performance.'

The second commenter said: 'To accuse someone of not caring about something is not the same thing as accusing them of discriminating against it - wrong - it is exactly the same thing. This article is poorly written and is a thinly veiled display of the writer's hatred of GWB. While I agree that GWB was a disastrous president, this article can not be taken seriously as it is unprofessionally written and obviously bias.'

I think you folks should come off it, and here's why. Saying someone doesn't care about something is saying someone doesn't care about something. I don't care about rugby, or about big, flashy automobiles. It does not mean I do not like them. They just don't press any of my buttons, see? Now, George is probably a racist, I don't know, but Kanye West didn't say he was. A lot of circumstantial evidence says he probably is.

The first commenter speaks of Obama's non-performance. You mean, by signing a financial reform law to protect the ordinary citizen from Wall Street sharks? That's your non-perfomance? Cutting drug costs for medicare recipients by half? Setting aside $12.2 billion in new funding for people With Disabilities Education Act? Extending benefits to same-sex state employees? Refusing to drag Cheney and company through the courts for war crimes (I agree with you on this one. He should have)?

Appointing more openly gay officials than any other president before him? Signing a $787 billion stimulus bill into law? Nominating Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice, and only the third woman, to the Supreme Court? Signing into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the worker's rights to sue employers over wage discrmination claims? Creating more private sector jobs in 2010 alone than during the eight years of Bush?

Or do you mean Obama is non-perfomant by allowing US aid to go to organizations regardless of whether they provide abortions? By lifting the ban on stem cell research? By expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program to cover four million more lower-income kids? By giving the FDA the authority to control the making, marketing, and sale of tobacco products for the first time? By beginning the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq (there are no WMDs there)?

Or perhaps President Obama is non-perfomant by phasing out the F-22 war plane and other obsolete weapons systems (which aren't even used or needed in Iraq or Afghanistan)? By signing a new START Treaty with Russia to reduce nuclear weapons by at least 30%? By ending Bush-era interrogation tactics that included 'waterboarding'? By providing attractive tax write-offs for those who buy hybrid automobiles?

It seems to me that a lot of hasty judgements are being made on President Obama's performance not because of non-performance or whatever the name used may be, but because he's half-black/half-white. That's why there are calls from the right of "We want our country back." From who? Talk about wanting one's country back, the American Indians would love theirs back. And theirs was really stolen.

Happy birthday, Chinua!

The novelist Chinua Achebe, a fine stylish and an astute social critic, is one of the best-known African writers in the West and his novels are often assigned in university courses.

Nigerian novelist and poet, whose works explore the impact of European culture on African society. Achebe's unsentimental, often ironic books vividly convey the traditions and speech of the Ibo people. Born in Ogidi, Nigeria, Achebe was educated at the University College of Ibadan (now the University of Ibadan).

He subsequently taught at various universities in Nigeria and the United States. Achebe wrote his first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), partly in response to what he saw as inaccurate characterizations of Africa and Africans by British authors. The book describes the effects on Ibo society of the arrival of European colonizers and missionaries in the late 1800s.

Achebe's subsequent novels No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987) are set in Africa and describe the struggles of the African people to free themselves from European political influences. During Nigeria's tumultuous political period of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Achebe became politically active. Most of his literary works of this time address Nigeria's internal conflict (see Nigeria, Federal Republic of: Civil War). These books include the volumes of poetry Beware, Soul Brother (1971) and Christmas in Biafra (1973), the short-story collection Girls at War (1972), and the children's book How the Leopard Got His Claws (1972).
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Ngoan'a Ntšoana

Sitting on a Stoep

The first time we sat on this stoep at night
a moon (Japanese lamp with moth-coloured cloth
tightly around it) stopped over her shoulder
& looked at what was happening in her lap.
Which was nothing more than our hands entwined.
It has since come every night to listen with us
for cries of life from bushes and trees,
where people we do not know rise, eat, pray,
go to work like us, fuck like us, & die like us,
expecting always from our world a signal of truth.
& so every night we sit on this stoep & wait,
here where sun-baked days bring their disciples;
we sit on this stoep & look at stars, far candles
that wink from other rooms. Knowing her as the girl
in my mirror playing with face-powder while
a woman lies in a pool of wine on the floor
has played into my zeal. I remember a day
in August when rain scuttled us under the trees,
her red dress billowing in a gust & covering us
with a slow parachute as it was touching down.
Tonight as we sit waiting on who might come
& in whose eyes our innerself now grows, I
slip my arm around her waist under her clothes,
& work it so I may more easily get to her breasts.