Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

What a week. I’ve been in such a good mood, I’m sure that somewhere I’m illegal.  I’ve got that I can do anything, I just kicked some bear boodie exuberance.  I’ve experiencing that cup running over thing while cheerful is slapping me about the head and shoulders.

Something has shifted. A tide has turned.  Not a moment too soon if you ask me.  The blackwoman needs a little rest, some time to put my hands in the dirt and grow something wonderful. In celebration.

This year I’m planting an Obama Victory Garden .  It will provide food, flowers and fragrance. I will watch it grow and see it as an analogy for what is taking place in America.

Commentary
Dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor


When I started Black Kos I had two goals in mind. First, to prevent the balkanization of the Blogosphere. While some people thought creating a "Black Kos thread" would increase balkanization I disagreed. My thinking was that if "information is the slayer of ignorance" creating a thread could help slay ignorance. By "ignorance" I mean more in the classical sense of the word, where people aren't knowledgeable on a topic. I read too many diaries where someone pissed of a person of color by writing something that was deeply insulting. But the sad part was they didn’t mean to insult the person. On the other hand the person of color took it as an attack, assuming malice. I though that by sharing news items, a few pithy comments, maybe I could educate people.

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

I’ve been thinking lately that the framing of this election needs to change.  For one thing I’m weary of hearing about winning and fighting for the nomination. Battleground 2008. That is the old frame that has been rejected by Obama.  Its so twentieth century.

This election is not about winning.  It’s about leadership.

Winning and losing are a part of the old paradigm.  Leadership is new only because we haven’t seen much of it in the last fifty years.

Obama is showing through his example what leadership looks like. It is so unfamiliar that many people see it as his weakness.  It is not.  

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor


I’ve been looking into my heart to find my real feelings about Jeremiah Wright and the events of the last few days.

As I write this, Obama has packed up the baggage left by Rev. Wright and the media.  Make no mistake, the media is the thing.

Obama has been taking hits from every direction. Hillary, McLame, Bill, scarred burrow, damnity, Tweety et.al.  The miracle is that he has weathered it with more grace than the situation deserved.  During these last few weeks, Obama has been grace it’s own self.

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

This primary season has served to rip the band-aides off of some of the deepest wounds in our nation.  Hillary seems to me to be defiant.  Angry. Intentional in her disrespect for Barack.

From where I’m standing her campaign illustrates the anger carried in the hearts of so many older women in this country.  It is the bitter that goes unspoken as the punditz look at numbers and try to divine the real nature of the body politic which is apparently having an anger seizure. Some things are obvious.

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

On the face of it, this week seemed long and difficult.  The blackwoman had to grab herself by her belief system quite a few times.

See, I believe that we are watching the dinosaur die.  Listening as it were, to the sound of irrelevance.

For some reason, I’ve been thinking about Freddie Kruger.  I only saw the movie Nightmare on Elm Street in bits and pieces (being a romantic comedy, Katt Williams, Great Debaters kinda sistah) but the ending struck me.

As I recall, the last girl standing was in her bedroom and Freddie had shown up to finish her off.  Instead of being afraid, last girl standing looked him in the eye and told him he was finished.  She told him she wanted her life back, her friends and family restored.  I think I heard her tell him he had no power.  He reached out to slay her and....vanished.  Into thin air

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

America is a strange place in many ways. On one hand, it is a nation founded on the principles of liberty. This is without question. On the other it was prospered by kidnapping Africans and forcing them into slavery.  No liberty.  No freedom.  No justice for all.  For a long time.

What I question is if we are all operating with the same idea about the definition of the word free. I know what I mean by the word.  Not sure about some folks.

I define free speech to mean that I have the right to say what I want. I do not have the right to insist that you also say it. That is tyranny.

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

I found that leaving the plantation wasn't that hard. For one thing nothing on the plantation was mine anyways.  I left the plantation the selfsame moment I realized that hard work is not truly valued.  Leisure is what's valuable. Folks who can live in leisure are the respected folks. They are the envy and aspiration of the American Dream. All that bizness about how Americans value working is just so much bullshit. If work had any value, black folks would be treated better.  Four hundred years of unpaid working ought to engender a lot of respect.  If work was the object of the exercise.

We leave the plantation every time we refuse to buy into the narrative that we are helpless. Each time we are able to see through to the truth we are in effect running away from the plantation. When we stand up for what is right and decent and just we build community. We move off the plantation.  Black folks are not the only ones who have to do this.  There are fewer of us still on the plantation.

Welcome to Black Kos! The diary series where issues affecting Americans of African descent, and others are highlighted as our great nation begins to heed the call of A More Perfect Union and move forward. Come, sit a spell and join the discussion.

This diary series isn't meant to balkanize, ghettoize, or separate. It is not a campaign or candidate diary. Instead, it is designed to highlight issues that a significant portion of the Democratic electorate faces daily, whether we live in the inner city or we're solidly middle class suburbanites or we're young urban professionals, or retirees on pensions and social security. America has a rich story, made up of all of us. This is just one small chapter of that story. Take a read.  -- Terrypinder