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“font-family: Verdana;”>I enjoy quoting myself.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>Recall, I translated Birther catchphrases: “Obama is a noncitizen-elitist-overspending-Muslim-socialist.” I tried as well illuminating white supremacist backlash: “If I can’t run it, nobody’s running it,” and cited a sinister pattern among leadership: America’s over; I’m taking the money and running.”
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>A 2008 photo by Wiley Price shows AME pastors laying hands on candidate Obama, cementing my belief that God’s hands were on our president and that his leadership in the fractious milieu of American politics was an anointing.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>Consider the impressive outcomes of meticulous planning and execution of a brilliant mind: health care legislation passed; significant gains during a lame duck session; the auto industry salvaged. (I make no consideration at present as to whether targeting bin Laden was outside the president’s aforementioned anointing; I make none with regard to American drones circling the Mideast).
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>I believe that God will continue to work through this man to provide a future for this country and that, despite the malaise amid portions of citizenry, America’s blessings will proliferate well beyond psychic distress and white supremacists’ evils.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>Barack is no Dr. King. Dr. King was no Jesus Christ. Ever notice how imperfection is used to achieve perfection?
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>White majorities of Wisconsin and Ohio recalling elected officials may not have Donald Trump’s self-professed compatibility with “the blacks,” predating of course his public berating of affirmative action, chapter two of a remarkably narcissistic hissy fit. Despite this, self-actualized white majorities work impressively for the common good.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>It is important and obvious that many Americans have not abandoned democracy, even when defining self-interest in complete opposition to each other. Said ideals come as close to seeing God’s face in every human as is humanly possible. I marvel, contemplating a higher power working through labyrinthine crises and manifesting outcomes initially unperceived, infrequently punditry’s labor.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>As someone who shouts in church and stays glued whenever possible to news, this is my assessment of Barack Obama. For three decades, I hoped for establishment of a sovereign African-American nation during my lifetime, convinced that people whose validation insists on my inferiority are a waste of my time.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>As with the import of Gil Scott Heron’s classic, “Winter In America,” I believed a future of more fully realized American ideals did not exist. I have learned from a mixed-race (whatever that is) president to discern an America I had eschewed.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>If you don’t believe this man is holding cards to be ultimately played with laser efficacy, guess I’m not your girl.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>Ruth-Miriam Garnett is a poet, novelist and essayist. Her newest book is “font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>Concerning Violence, New & Selected Poems (Onegin 2010). Ruth can be reached directly at “mso-bidi-font-style: normal;”>
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“color: black; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;”> ruthm712@aol.com “mso-bidi-font-style: italic;”>.
