The Presidential Image Awards

 I'm starting to wonder if Barack is going to kick off the Electric Slide on the National Mall after the inaugural. The combination of Joseph Lowery, Aretha Franklin and Elizabeth Alexander is almost enough to make me think this will be somewhere between a grand state function and the Image Awards.

Almost enough to make me forget that Rick Warren will be on the program as well. On the other hand, I would arguably have even more grounds for offense had he brought Eddie Long into the mix so maybe I should hold my fire on this one.

Still at some point I suppose we'll have a discussion about Obama being too ecumenical -- a tent can only be so big before it starts to sag at the seams. Fresh off the defeat of Proposition 8 and Warren's implied slam against Obama when he said that no Christian in his right mind could vote for a pro-choice candidate I think we're approaching the outer limits of postpartisanship. And there's something unsettling about the avuncular tone Karl Rove has been taking, offering congrats and "advice" to the President-Elect. Kind of reminds me of the scene in the movie when the villain appears to be dead only to spring to life and attack once the hero turns his back.

So we need to have that discussion. But not today.

That can wait until after the Soul Train line down Pennsylvania Ave.

Comments

[FAH]

So what do you think about this "Soul Train line down Pennsylvania Ave?" Do you think that this is yet another occasion when black folk will be "partying and BSing" when we should be focusing on the kinds of substantive issues and ideas that might effect the trajectory of history?

I was invited to an inaugural gala with a star-studded program. Singers, comedians, entertainers of epic proportion! My wife and I were invited to partake for a mere $400 a ticket. A steal right?!?! (tongue in cheek--of course) When my wife asked me if I wanted her to buy the tickets, I thought to myself, "why do we always have to have a party?" Every time something historic is happening, we have a huge contingent of well dressed, shuckers and jivers getting their party on. now don't get me wrong, we should celebrate this occasion, but I really hope that we can put the party on hold for a minute and get a collective focus. One of the reasons that Obama was elected was because we stopped partying long enough to get to the polls and vote… and now… what will we do? Now is not the time to have a "Soul Train line down Pennsylvania Ave" but we will anyway.

[jelani c.]

hmm... I don't know. I kinda think that if ever there was a time worthy of a soul train line this is it. i think january 21st will require that we wake up (however dazed, hungover and worn out we might be) and get down to the hard work of moving ourselves forward and holding barack obama accountable.

[MichaelAllen]

FAH: I have to agree with Mr. Cobb on this one. We have been waiting four hundred some odd years, since the first boat landed, to see a man like Obama in the White House. I'm in Canada but you can best believe I will electric slide down my street with my Ipod tuned to Ree Ree all day long. You have to celebrate your victories THEN get down to business.

I'm not so sure that I'm upset about Rick Warren because Rev Lowrey is there too. I said earlier that from my perspective it seems that Mr Warren, through the invocation is showing us where we have been for the past eight years, and that with Rev Lowrey at the end of the program, we are witnessing where we are going. I write plays though, so I'm like Noah, always looking for an arc.

I know what you're saying about the tent getting saggy but you can't preach diversity if you aren't willing to demonstrate it. Just cause I won't read a Rick Warren book don't mean it's not in print.

Glad to see you here. Will keep reading.

MM

[shani]

Funny stuff, glad to read you online. I'll also help answer FAH's question. I wouldn't be so quick to chastise folks for partying as if black folks made this tradition up for inauguration. This happens every 4 years and plenty of non-black people will be in that soul train line with or without us. Let's celebrate the moment and then pray for the best. I think many of us will become more politically savvy just because we want to follow his presidency and stay in the loop. Kinda like the attention the Williams sisters brought to tennis.

[kid bitzer]

you've got a typo there:

"almost enough to make me think this will be somewhere between a grand state function and... "

the grand funk station.

[jelani c.]

damn... that's pretty good.

[kid bitzer]

thank you so much! if you were to put it up in the post, you'd make my day.

[Ralph Hitchens]

Based on what Rick Warren said in his BeliefNet interview I think his anti-gay stance is really more anti-sex outside marriage. His is a severely constrained view of human sexuality -- all sex outside man/woman/marriage is sinful -- and it was on those very narrow grounds that he opposed Prop. 8. Gay activists will have a hard time condemning him out of hand in light of his AIDS activism, under the auspices of which he reached out to Obama.

What the mostly secular progressive Democrat community (in which I put myself) needs to understand is that Warren is not really of the "Christian Right" as commonly portrayed. He has broad appeal within the mainstream of American Protestantism -- e.g., my fairly liberal United Methodist congregation.

[G]

And your problem with Rick Warren is....

[jelani c.]

Not a problem with Rick Warren per se, but I do have a problem (or at least a concern.) I spelled it out in the post titled "the barack problem."