Thursday, November 06, 2008

Yesterday while I was on my way to work, I saw three girls and one boy running down the street. They were black, they all had uniforms on, and they seemed to be in the junior high age group. Each of them had a newspaper in their hand, and they were running down the street screaming, "We won, We won, Obama won" as they ran past me. I had mixed emotions about this. On one hand, I admire their enthusiasm, because this COULD quite possibly be the first election they have paid attention to, and if they are inspired in some way, shape or form by Obama's victory, then that is great Perhaps they'll even get into student government or something en route to a political career. I just hope a parent or a teacher explains EVERYTHING to these kids. They need to know the struggle it took to get to this point, they need to understand how Obama won, why he won, and then they need to realize the daunting task ahead. And this isn't an effort to shoot the kids down at all, but if they are old enough to run around with newspapers in their hand, they are certainly old enough to get full detailed explanation. And there are some adults who could stand to receive that lesson too.

Speaking of newspapers, they need to start make newspaper machines that accept dollar bills. On may walk to work to yesterday, I saw at least 5 or 6 machines FULL of newspapers but all I had in my pocket were dollar bills, and since I thought I might be late, I did not stop in a deli, the drug store, or Starbucks to pick one up. I figured I'd be able to get on after work, but clearly I was mistaken. Stores and newspaper machines alike were BONE dry yesterday. In fact, even when the Washington Post announced they were reprinting this special edition, I still couldn't find one. Finally, I went out about 8pm to a corner store, and they had ONE more paper that the owner was nice enough to give me. Personally, I think the newspaper edition that comes out January 20th is way more important but that's just me.

One more thing about newspapers. They were dying a slow death until yesterday, when suddenly Obama's victory gave them a serious shot in the arm. In fact, they need to give the Obama family a percentage of their sales yesterday. We'll see if they can maintain their momentum until inauguration. You see my friends, as good as internets is on a day to day basis, it won't be fun 40 years from now, to get on the computer, pull up the Washington Post archives, and show your kids and grand kids the "Obama-won-the presidency" electronic edition of the paper. But if you have hard, laminated copy to pull out, it just makes things that much more tangible..to me at least.

Oh and its not too late to read my article from yesterday.

The song that about to link below came on my ipod this morning during my run, and I was so inspired that I started running, harder, better, faster and stronger.. Oh, and PLEASE don't blast this song if you're at work. It is totally inappropriate and yes its a bit misogynist, but damn if it isn't effective when you're running.

Xxplosive - Dr. Dre featuring Kurupt, Nate Dogg and Six Two

2 comments:

Neil MacLean said...

They were gone from one machine outside my place when I walked my dog yesterday, so I snapped one up at the metro from a vendor. At that point I knew they might be hard to come by. I like the Express cover even better, and that one too was hard to find. People were actually keeping them for once.

spirit_55 said...

Hi Rashad, I'm co-signing with you, my brother. Yes, those little black kids need to know their history on so many levels, and they will get schooled, and even if their parents don't teach them, life sure will. For me, most importantly, I think they are experiencing along with the rest of us, that we do not have to be afraid of who we are!

Aubrey and I drove around looking for newspapers for half and hour. Couldn't even snap up a local paper. We finally got all the copies we cared to have. I've got my hard copies. I want to pass them on to my grandchildren one day.