Smooth Barack - It's Serendipity, Y'all

Wassup, Y'all!

I'm sure many of you have already read Smooth Barack's first book, Dreams From My Father - A Story of Race and Inheritance so you'll already know where I'm headed with this. Ol Ty just finished the audio book version and I have to say, if you want a personal, inside glimpse of the man (which you should as you begin to assess the potential Presidential candidates) - actually of the process of how the boy became the man he is today - you need to read or listen to that joint. I recommend going the audio book route for a couple reasons: 1) he narrates the book himself so it sounds like you're sittin' down for a personal chat with homeboy (he does character voices that range from street homeboys to the Kenyan accents of his family members) and 2) it includes bonus material bonus - a copy of his star making speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the speech that introduced Smooth Barack to the world...

His book makes it clear that his convention speech wasn't just arbitrary platitudes spun
together into tight sound bites. He was speaking of his life and the experiences that have made him not only unique, but, in my opinion, uniquely qualified to be a great president - which is his goal. His heritage is multi-racial. His views are formed by life experiences gained by living not only in America but abroad as well. He's never lived in an isolated, homogeneous world - he's lived among people of all backgrounds and ethnicities. His formative years were never wrapped in the myopic cloak of power and privilege. It was no accident that he didn't support the Iraq war from the beginning - his studied view of the world as the complicated entity it is (religious factions, political factions, economic factions) told him all he needed to know about that decision and his predictions on its outcome have come to pass.

Should he run, as alluded to in his convention speech, he won't be a black president or a liberal president, he will truly be an American president with a vision that doesn't rely on empty, separatist rhetoric and appeasement to a political faction.

All these seemingly random confluences have me thinking that serendipity is playing a role in all this. One definition of serendipity is "finding something unexpected and useful while searching for something else entirely". From the beginning, Smooth Barack has wanted to be an organizer for change - just a small time operator working at the grassroots level. Somehow along the way, an opportunity came along that could power that ambition to unimagined heights.

Do yourself a favor - read his book. Learn about the man before assessing the candidate. Once you do that, you'll realize what presidential potential really is. I'm not hatin' on Hillary - I have no doubt she would be a capable president but, unfortunately, she remains a catylist of division - a convenient excuse for further separation between the country's political factions. By inauguration day 2009 we will have had 16 years of that ruckus. The time is now and, in my opinion, the candidate to pull us back together is Smooth Barack (who will hopefully be officially in the race on February 10th).

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

P.S. And hell naw I ain't givin' equal blog time to opposing candidates :-)