Change America Inaugural Banquet

It is interesting, the whole reason I started this blog was to chronicle the work that I do with black boys and young men and the need to create realized, college educated black men. Obama's election trumped everything though, it wasn't till after the election that I realized that football season was six or seven games in and I completely missed the baseball season.

Well, now things are sort of back to normal (how normal can things be, we have an African American President) and I can get back to the rest of my life. With that said, I lead an organization called College Tribe here in Washington DC and we are holding the "Change American," Inaugural Banquet on January 20, 2008 at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel from 8pm to Midnight.

It is a fundraiser for College Tribe's scholarship fund featuring open bar, live music, open bar, three course plated meal, open bar, old school DJ. Check out College Tribe's website for more details.

Where are you going to party on the big day?

Wow!!! Who Knew???

Inauguration Ball Fever

Here in Washington D.C. the fever, jockeying and planning for the inauguration is in full flight. People are renting out their apartments for as much as $6000 for a two bedroom for five days, reports the Washington Post. If you do not already have a hotel room, then your best bet is Baltimore.

Going to one of the Balls is still possible, but you are looking at a minimum of $500. Estimates are that upwards of 400,000 people will descend on the city for the festivities. It is going to be New Year's Eve all over again.

December 13th, A Day of Obama Action

It is not election day or the Inauguration, but let's make this the Day of Action by Obama people. The campaign is over but the struggle continues (when was the last time you heard that?) On this day let us all wear Obama gear and volunteer and or make donations. Let us focus on the following areas:

Clothing donations
Children's book donation
Christmas toys of kids

This would be the first step in continuing the movement. Another important step is to continue to harness the immense power of online fund raising that the Obama campaign unleashed. If we committed a $5 a month donation to a Change You Can Believe In Foundation that would be democratically run by the online contributors we could have a enormous impact on local organizations.

If any of this, or anything else seems daunting, please remember Obama won, it's all possible!

What Next-Part III

It is incumbent on all the people that participated in the Obama campaign to ensure that the movement does not get entirely consumed by government. I think we would be wrong to wait for direction from the remnants of the campaign. The essential thing about organizing is the empower the people you have organized to take action themselves. This demands that we take some leadership and create a nationwide event.

We all made contacts with others that work on the campaign, we still have phone numbers and email addresses, we can decide on a day and an activity before the inauguration for an Action.

What Next-Part II

We last left the story talking about Movement, their nature and how they end up creating change. A movement is transformational instead of transactional. McCain's campaign was purely transactional, offering no real change to how we do business (happy to debate this if necessary). Obama's campaign was transformational on two levels: 1. A black man seeking the Presidency and 2. People believed that he truly wanted to change our political culture.

A movement also offers people on the local level the opportunity to participate where they are. A movement has to have the aspect, lots of people participating. Obama's use of the Internet made this happen and the campaigns ability to follow up with people who contacted them and give them things to do.

Put both of these things together and you start to change people, which is what changes the culture. My fear is that with the formal campaign over folks no longer have a vehicle to participate and that will stymie change.

What Next-Part I

Still mildly hung over from celebrating last night,so I'm not able to get as deep into the topic of, "What Next," but here are a few thoughts. What changes communities, institutions, people and countries are movements. The civil rights movement, the suffragette movement, Anti-Apartheid movement to name a few are the true engines of change

What happened after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act is that the Civil Rights movement really lost its essence. It failed to adapt over time and was supplanted by black folks running for political office. The campaigns became the substitute for the movement, but campaigns by definition are terribly limited and the goal is really singular.

Obama's campaign for President is the closest thing we have had to a true movement since the 1960s. It meets all the tests of a movement (more on this in the next post) and its goal really is not singular. I think we all feel that the goal of the Obama campaign was not just to get him elected. That was a step on the way. If you look at his goals for governing you will see the next steps in the movement (more on this later)

The issue is how do we all continue to participate.

Yes we did!!!!

I do admit that I was nervous last night, I thought Virginia would have been called for Obama sooner and that started to send the blood pressure up. There certainly was the dread that there would be some trick, some method of stealing the election, a new Kathrine Harris would emerge. But when when Ohio was called it was done! The election was over. Obama was on track to carry all the states that Kerry had won plus Ohio, so that was the victory. At that point it became a matter of how large. Virginia and Florida were sweet, so very sweet, then waking up this morning to hear that he got Indiana as well just put a little more sugar in the coffee.

It is interesting to see the Republican reaction to his victory. I continue to feel that Republican party has been dominated by a group of venal people who have the attitude of exclusive as opposed to inclusive. Listening to some of them comments of Republicans this morning the undercurrent of bitterness and resentment is palpable. It is my hope that we can start to move away from that sort of politics. I think it is really incumbent on Democrats to lead that part of the movement and reach out to mainstream Republicans and build brides. We all play a roll in this effort. We all have a responsibility now to make this work.

The Big Day

My condolences to Obama on the loss on his grandmother today, one day before the election. I saw him shed a single tear today and it is clear what gets to him. There has been much talk about his temperament, how he is unflappable. Not true. On Halloween he flew back to Chicago to take one of his daughters trick or treating and became visibly upset when a camera crew followed them a little too long. My arm chair psychology suggest that his center is his family, his wife, daughters, his grandmother. The world outside of that cannot get to him. That's my thought.

Spread the wealth? Hell yeah!!!!

I am amazed that McCain thinks he can gain traction with his attach line the Obama wants to "spread the wealth." Seeing his crowds boo when he brings up the idea of spreading the wealth is surreal. But when I step back for a moment I realize what he is doing, or at least what his supporters are hearing.

The are hearing that Obama wants to spread their wealth to the poor. Never mind that what Obama was talking about was paying for his tax cut to the middle class by increasing the taxes on those making over $250,000. Now I imagine the people at McCain rallies are folks making less than $250,000, so what Obama wants to do would benefit them. No matter.

Princeton Professor Larry Bartels, the author of "The Unequal Democracy" research has shown: The real incomes of middle-class families grew more than twice as fast under Democratic presidents as they did under Republican presidents. Even more remarkable, the real incomes of working-poor families (at the 20th percentile of the income distribution) grew six times as fast when Democrats held the White House.

If you want to talk about "spreading the wealth" what has really happened since 1980 is that 80% of net income gains have gone to the top 1% in the country. This we accept as the "will of the market."

I wonder if McCain would call Ronald Regan a socialist for instituting the earned income tax credit, which allows low income workers to receive a refund, not due to overpayment of taxes, but as a redistribution mechanism. Another Republican wealth redistribution program is Section 8, which provides rental housing subsidies to low income families. This was a Nixon program, Nixon was many things but a socialist he is not.

The truly surreal thing about the accusation of socialism is that the current Republican Administration is partially nationalizing banks. Shouldn't McCain be branded Bush as a socialist?

A Change is a comin'

How they get away with this!

A new view of the Economy

David Brooks has a very interesting article outlining what he sees the historic impulses of the American Economy and then suggests a third that is best suited for the 21st century. What makes this particularly interesting to me is that he references a Democratic effort to articulate this new vision with respect (The Hamilton Project). I am always intrigued when people of one party agree with people of the other.

Ceding the Center

Really?!?