Misplaced Priorities in the Age of Carnival Barkers

Yes, it is true President Barack Obama was born here in the United States of America. Shall I repeat for those who didn’t hear it for the first, second, or fifty-leventh time?


This morning President Barack Obama confirmed and presented evidence to solve one of the greatest mysteries in American history second to that of the location Jimmy Hoffa’s body. During today’s press conference Mr. Obama released his “long form birth certificate” with hopes to put at the ease the long debated conversation on the geographic location of the president’s birth.

Never in the course of American civilization has there been such controversy or as my grandmother likes to say “a hissy fit” over the location of birth of any American president. Recently a poll released by the Pew Center showed only 25% of American people actually believed that he was born in another country. Interestingly enough 45% of Republicans believed he was born in another country and 45% of Tea Partiers believe the same exact thing. Coincidence? I think not.

Can irony be found in the fact that the very self-proclaimed patriots that we’ve come to know as the “Tea Party” of this country honestly believed that the American system is flawed and has evidently failed them by electing a president who was not born here and most assuredly is a Muslim?!

And yet coming of the heels of a potential government shutdown and in between another expected battle of the vote to raise the debt ceiling for the country, American cable news seems to think we are more interested in hearing what a majority of us know to be true or could care less about.

The misplaced priorities of government and the American cable news has diverted the attention of the American people to things of no real importance to the current deteriorating condition of minorities and low-income families. Yes, the racial undertones of the “birther movement” demanding the “papers” of the first African-American President (in the truest sense of the term) are quite disturbing and unacceptable.

However, unless we – the American People - use this opportunity to engage in a serious and intentional dialogue about racism, the implications of a dangerous social construct and its connection to both state and federal policies than we will find ourselves; we will once again have to deal with another attempt to delegitimize our country’s first black president and continued devastation of those of us “with our backs against the wall.”

In a different world, on this morning we would have all been celebrating yesterday’s ruling by the US Appeals court declaration of our brother Mumia Abu Jamal’s death sentence unconstitutional or the announcement by US Department of Education that they will forgive the debt of Morris Brown College.

Well so much for the perfect world. The reality is while we are concentrating on irrelevant items while our basic right to vote is being compromised in over 2/3 of states across the country and state budget cuts are forcing young black mothers to be jailed for the basic freedom of a quality education.

I guess now that this will be the official end - for me at least - of the “birther movement” we have only how many more days and hours to be lulled to a political sleep by the cable news coverage of the Royal Wedding while the blood of our brother and sisters in Northern Africa run freely through the streets at the hand of oppressive regimes?

Thank you Mr. President, now that we have all seen your birth certificate can we finally address things of importance i.e. the stalemate of black youth unemployment, shrinking of the safety net…you know things that are of importance to us the other 75% American people.

As a dear friend of mine once said “the balloons have popped and the clowns have gone home” thank you birthers and Donald Trump but your elongated 15 seconds are over.

“We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers” – President Barack Obama