Crushing Eggshells

One of my favorite Radio Hall of Famers is a guy named Art Bell. Not long ago he wrote a book called The Quickening. In it he described a period of time when things move more quickly and eventually reach a tipping point: terminal velocity. Like most things this depends on your point of view but that time seems to have arrived.

This week Ed Esposito, Eric Mansfield and Megan Mahoney from WMFD-TV in Mansfield were invited to talk to high school and some college students about beginning their careers in broadcasting. This was sponsored by Z-TV, the University of Akron campus television station and its teaching general manager Phil Hofmann. As I looked into those young faces I saw apathy and interest, boredom and excitement, I saw those who just wanted a day away from the routine and some who really wanted to make a living at work in the media. We were separated by two generations and I could not help but wonder if they felt the same rush of history. Probably not.

As barriers fall I listen intently for the sounds of change. For one thing we are going from a president that was not only a walking punch line but added select malapropisms that will be with us for years. Now we have a new central character in the seat of power. He was swept into the White House with a solid majority, by he has two choices in this job: be great (like Mt Rushmore great), or, well, there is no other option.

Back in February I wrote a piece describing this moment as giving the nation and the world permission to stop dealing with race like some wicked game of Operation; pick lightly at the topic otherwise you touch off a wave of offense and accusations. Presidents are by nature fair game. 43 men have been subjected to ridicule, literally at the highest levels. In recent history the smallest anomaly filled comedy shows and became part of pop culture. From Nixon's slump to Ford's falls, every one of them had something. Now we have Obama. I tend to think that this president will present more fuel for that fire than the color of his skin or his African name. Yet from the Italian prime minister we have the first toe-dip into the subject. He mention how tanned our new president is. By the way, black folks do tan. Then the president-elect himself called himself a mutt while describing the kind of dog he wanted for his daughters as they move into the White House. Not bad.

For the most part Presidents are fair game. Without being mean and nasty – trust me there are already millions of internet pages devoted to that kind of vitriol – there are plenty of opportunities for good natured ribbing. It would be worst to tip toe around all the massive changes that are flooding toward us. Just as Art Bell talked about in The Quickening, things are changing at a blinding pace. There is no time to parse every work and worry about whom we might offend.

Intellectual Homogeny

Do all the people you know agree with you? Do you ever argue with friends, without condemning them, even on the most fundamental issues? It seems to me that this basic human interaction has become a political hot button. And if we are not careful it could cloud the things we as a nation need to think about as we go to the polls on Tuesday.

When I was doing visits with my college-bound kid, I noticed an interesting thing about the various campuses we stopped by: ideas varied, the discussions were vigorous but only to a point. If you live on a college campus, if you work in the classrooms, the research labs and have dinner and drinks at the University Clubs, then there is a certain atmosphere you are forced to breathe. More often than not, I found, the air was toxic with anti-Americanism, historic revisionism based on narrow and obscure interpretations and the notion that all the ills of the world began with the creation and continued behavior of the United States.

This is where the Democratic candidate spent much of his professional career, before immersing himself in public service as an elected official. Is it any wonder that he ran into, even sat down with and befriended those with decidedly unpatriotic views, even radical views? The University of Chicago like most elite schools prides itself on employing a diverse faculty and staff. Where else could you find the kinds of people with whom Barack Obama is being bundled? I am not dismissing the associations, but I understand how they came about. I've seen the process first hand.

In these last hours of the presidential campaign we find these associations at the center of the debate, at least from the McCain side. If I thought that this man, Barack Obama, walked in lock step with the three prominent characters he called, associate, pastor and friend - Ayers, Wright and Khalidi – then we would have a serious problem. But for him to know these men and not publicly chastise them anymore than he has already is not surprising. I would like to believe he had some spirited debates, even arguments with them over the years. I would like to have heard his position on America, race relations and the Israeli/Palestinian issue. I would like to know his passion in opposing these radical ideas. I would like to, but I don't other than taking his word now, just a few steps from the oval office.

My best friend holds the same job I do for a major competitor. No one in my company ever asked me to denounce him or our friendship; that my job depended on it. My bosses trust my judgment enough to know that I would never disclose company secrets or strategies as it relates to competing with and beating my friend's radio stations in the ratings. At least I hope that is the case.

The people who find Obama unacceptable as our president use his association and in some cases his own words to make their case. My problem is that this is taking us away from a good A-B comparison with what these men will do for this country in these difficult times. If I am to learn anything about the person I prefer to judge the things he says, not the people he may have argued with. That goes both ways, and during this longest presidential campaign in history I think we have all heard enough.

Selling Fear

So, here I am in Florida listening to talk radio. I happened to like talk radio as an art form, when done well. Left or right a good talk show is fun to listen to. We have some locally, but honestly the most popular talk shows here are more familiar than they are good; like an old, comfortable but disgusting pair of slippers.

In Tampa Bay there are some pretty good talk shows. I mentioned one in the last blog. This day brought a new turbo charged effort by conservative talk shows to scare the pants off us at the possibility of an Obama administration. It is a real war footing. It seemed to start with the interview in Orlando with Joe Biden and WFTV news anchor Barbara West. I'm not quite sure what to make of the interview and that's not really the basis for my observation. It certainly was a newscast that made news.

Here's where I will confuse you as far as my position in all this: I agree with some of the conservative commentators that many voters are not listening to what the candidates are saying, either candidate. What they are doing - what we are doing - is leading with emotions. We are not listening to John McCain, who has discovered a mantra: "redistribution of wealth." We are not listening to Barack Obama who is actually outlining a plan that could very well be called, yes, redistribution of wealth.

The fact is we already have our wealth flowing all over government and an otherwise private industry. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 is by definition taking money from us the taxpayer and giving it to banks and other financial institutions. The theory is that if we sure up these businesses we will have a better chance of getting to that money when we need it in the form of loans. Tax deductions, farm subsidies, automakers bail outs, even charities and needy members of our own family, it's all a form of financial equilibrium. We are constantly redistributing wealth. The fear we are being sold is that the wealth you and I are working hard for is going to someone who is either not as talented, not working as hard, or not working at all. Mr. Obama is not that stupid, and Mr. McCain does not really believe we are that stupid.

So forget the mantras. Here's the hard part, put aside the emotions, especially fear. You really need to know what these two men stand for and choose the one who best reflects your vision of your country - our great country. This will be the 14th presidential election I have lived through. Each one was important, and at the time seemed to be the most important election of all time. Wars, shaky economies, social upheaval, it was all there and it has always been there.

The merchants of fear are doing a land office business, but there's is no law that says we have to buy it.

Obonix

This past week the presidential candidate everyone likes to talk about made a speech. It was not exactly your typical stump speech. It was carefully aimed at the audience in front of him.

Everything this man does is careful. That's what makes him so successful as a candidate - historically it is also what makes men less effective as presidents.

In this speech Mr. Obama was blunt about some of the problems facing black men in the 21st Century. He talked about the long odds against making it as a pro athlete or entertainer. His message is the same message I heard from my father; the same many of these men - the older attendance to be sure - heard from their fathers. The problem is not the message, for some it is the way he spoke it.

Words mean much. And in the course of my day I may embrace several different dialects. It's not just for show, though when talking to my friend Jim Wilson there is inevitably a slide into a real street-speak of black comedians and family I have known. It's fun and there is no better way to tell a story about crazy people doing silly things. It goes back to my mother, one of the smartest people I have ever known. Mary Collins could tell a story better than anyone. And though she spent her life teaching kids in their most impressionable years the importance of knowing "the king's English," she could talk trash.

That is not what Senator Obama did. He simply let his guard down some and added emphasis in a way that was more natural and accepted among black folks than perhaps at a meeting of the Santa Barbara Camber of Commerce. There's nothing wrong with knowing your audience. Yet Jesse Jackson and others have accused the candidate of "speaking down" to young black men. Whatever.

Dr. Michael Dyson and others have embraced the music of our language, our gestures and our willing adaptation of the language. At the same time we understand when it is appropriate and when it is not. There is nothing wrong with that and should Senator Obama succeed to the Whitehouse, it will be just as real as George W. Bush's occasional fall into the homespun Midland Texas tone or the John F. Kennedy Massachusetts missing R's. If we are to make anything of Barack Obama's way of talking, let's remember the following. It might just be the most important words, the most historic words of this or the last century:

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

Nuff said.