The Underestimation of Obama

I’ve underestimated Barack Obama. To be fair, this revelation is nothing new. I’ve been underestimating him since his debut on the national political stage.   I never doubted his intelligence, his earnestness, his eloquence, charm or simple good looks. But I kind of underestimated him. I underestimated his ability to motivate a nation, his ability to begin the setting right or a historical wrong; I underestimated what his message of hope could really do.  But, most importantly, personally I underestimated the pride that I would feel seeing his face plastered all over the country.

I was killing time in JFK, waiting to see if the snow was going to delay my early morning flight to L.A.  Now, I don’t know if it was the lack of caffeine or the early hour at hand, but I actually found my self a little verklempt at 6 a.m. this morning.  I walked into Hudson News to replace my water bottle that had been confiscated a few paces back at security.

While I was looking for water, I got distracted by the tabloid covers about high-waisted Mom Jeans and Finding the Perfect Haircut for you -- you know, boobs, break-ups and botox, this that and the third, when I found myself further distracted by all of the brown heads on the cover of the magazines.  It wasn’t a random brown head, kind of floating on the covers. It was Barack’s brown head and the brown head of his wife, and sometimes even Sasha and Malia’s brown heads. I mean, they were everywhere. Just brown heads.There weren’t any guns in the hands of the brown heads. There were no gold chains hanging about the neck of the brown heads -- just smiling, non-menacing, no make-you-wanna-hide-your-purse, grab-a-40 ounce, or call the police brown heads. It was astounding -- and humbling.

Am I PMSing, I thought? What the hell? Fighting back the urge to emote, I started counting backwards.  Nope -- not PMS. Why then, was I getting teary and buying chocolate and a Newsweek magazine with Michelle and Barack dancing on its cover?

I didn’t grow up without successful black role models. I didn’t have to dream of black folks with professions and histories, traditions and education. It wasn’t something foreign to me.  When the Cosby show received backlash in the 90’s saying, “There aren’t real black families with a Dr. and a Lawyer!”  I knew the Cosbyesque black families and I retaliated with, “What about The Turners, The Generetts, The Richardsons!” I knew them, we were them.

But somewhere between hip-hop, jails, gunshots and sagging-ass jeans reminiscent of prison fashion, I forgot.  I’m not sure how it happened. I don’t know if it was one to many episodes of cops -- or the Flava of Love or simply the kick of one to many hip-hoppers timberlands to my dome, but the Cosby families of my youth seemed tiny and small in comparison to the clamoring discourse of our societal projections of blackness.  The once vivid images of the successful black families of my youth began to fade into my consciousness.

Imagine yourself magnified,mega-phoned on repeat as a people without grace, with little humanity, short on intelligence or dignity… for years.

As I tucked my Newsweek and M&M’s into my purse, I headed to the seating area where CNN was debating the impact of Barack’s impending appointments to his cabinet. Sitting there in a bit of an emotional and morning-struck haze -- the importance of role models and, at the very least, reflections re-imprinted itself to my mind.  If happy brown heads could move me toward non-premenstrual verklempting, imagine what could be next.

There is a quite dignity that comes with recognition -- that comes with seeing yourself magnified with beauty and with grace.  As I began fingering through my Newsweek -- never satisfied -- my gay self longed for the day when Lavender heads and the heads of women as well, would tell my same story.