The Experience

We experience ideas and situations. They affect how we live from that point on. Some may or at least seem unique. Something others can’t experience in the same way. (Yup, it is a weekender.)

I remarked the other day about Obama’s speech being one of the most important since those of MLK. I have thought about it more and think it might be watershed. We usually overlook important events in the media and leave them to the historians to detail.

Martin has become a mythic figure in many respects. He scared the hell out of the white establishment with basic honesty. He asked for a level playing field knowing that – like past handouts – coddling would be debilitating. His less charismatic successor, Abernathy, seem to understand that too. Then Jesse took over and it was all about entitlements.

We fast forward to last week’s revelations about the state of the Black church. There are some pretty shocking remarks; not the least of which is “God DAMN America!” repeated ad nauseam. On our local PBS, a black, academic from the University of Chicago describe it as a frequent occurrence and even applied a formulaic structure to it. That may be the case and the next segment would have preached the reconciliation he said it would. What I do know is that Christianity is about loving your brother rather than damning him. And Jesus parable of the Good Samaritan points out that even our perceived enemy is capable of heart and generosity.

For about 150 years, blacks were owned. Afterward, they didn’t get a fair shake. They were made fun of as sub-human beasts. That parallels the Irish, German, Polish, ad infinitum experience. Cartoons about the Irish in old papers were as rough as anything the KKK can dish out. There has always – at least until now – been an unfairness that forced upward or bust on the outcast. You ended up in the steel mills or as bad to provide for your family while preaching to your children that they were surrounded by opportunity that those parents meant for their offspring to have. And that was the emigrant experience that built this nation. It wasn’t fair but it was brutally selective. Inequality either destroys or improves the group. For 2000 years the Jews proved successfully from the first ghettos and purges that they were indomitable even in the face of persistent adversity.

My heart goes out to Mr. Obama. He’s pulled from two directions. He is black and accepted as such. He has a white grandmother who’s displayed the bigotry that is part of the human experience and seems to understand it. He walks a knife edge trying to balance the two. While the presidency seems in sight, he really has a higher calling. Mandella, Tutu and Ghandi seem his higher aspirations. What he might accomplish dwarf 8 years of power. But those 8 years are a drug that few could deny.

I hope he loses the race. I think it gives him a point of leverage that could change the world for the better if he can bring his two sides together.

ADDENDUM:

Our friends over at PokerNews have an interesting article about a study on luck vs skill. How they prove it seems so obvious in retrospection. And while you are there, check out Tom Sexton’s series on the gambler of gamblers, Archie Karas. It is almost complete. Tom’s one hell of an interesting writer/person.

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Check out my A-list post. I actually have comments from an A-lister. I won’t be cavalier and explain to him the difference of A-list and a list. Although, my feeling after being exposed to such erudite palaver is that of Homer Simpson in the peyotesque episode where the coyote screwed with his brain. Fortunately, the world failed to end in this latest episode too. Seems to confirm it isn’t the results as much as the trip for many. That’d seem to fly in the face of “poker blog” and move it toward the new age and crystal crowd. But, I’m too far down the lists to know for certain. Ahh, the joys of youth. Remember, Sir Bracelet, you are only a few lost brain cells from a future of gumming your food like me. I doubt you’ll notice the transition. Dementia remains our friend.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 9:41 am and is filed under Journal, Off Topic. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.