NYU Black Renaissance Noire Winter/Spring 2012 | Page 6

My Take By QUINCY TROUPE photograph by nathea Lee o Back row: Hamiet Bluiett, Quincy Troupe Front row (right): Ornette Coleman It is March 2012. Spring is just around the proverbial corner and will arrive quicker than quick. 4 Tree leaves are turning green. Fields are about to bloom dazzling colors of flowers, and people in cold climates are getting ready to switch their woolen winter clothing for lighter spring and summer wear. Winter is fast receding into memory and that’s how time rolls these days, seducing our minds and hearts with visions of a thaw, though we still have drenching rains and storms accompanying the clashing of weather systems to get through. Then beautiful summer days lie ahead. Spring and summer are mainly hopeful seasons, historically the time of the year that promises renewal, though over the last decades they have been seasons notably divisive in public and political discourse. Unfortunately, I see no change in that coming during this presidential election year, when the temperatures of American—and world—political discourse have reached a boiling point. During the fall of last year on November 21, 2011, the discourse in Florida became particularly coarse, hateful, and divisive, as First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, the wife of vice president, Joe Biden, were booed in their roles as grand marshals of the nascar season finale at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. The incident happened when the First Lady and Mrs. Biden’s names were announced, right before they delivered the famous words, “Drivers, start your engines.” The women were there to support military veterans and their families as part of a charitable campaign. They were standing beside retired Army Sgt. Andrew Barry, who is white, and his family. Sgt. Barry, a wounded Iraq and Afghanistan War vet, received loud applause, as he should have. But the booing of the First Lady and Dr. Biden was a chilling reminder of just how uncivil the nation and its citizenry have become. To make matters even worse, there was hardly a ripple of an outcry from the general public and the media regarding the ignominious incident. And to add fuel to the fire, the always caustic, viral, uncouth drug-addicted shock-jock radio announcer, Russ Limbaugh called the First Lady “uppity” (but not Dr. Biden. Could it have been because she is white?) for flying to the event on the presidential jet! Calling Michelle Obama “uppity” caused the almost always supportive African-American Republican spokesman, Michael Steele, to lose his temper and called Limbaugh, “Stupid.” This kind of talk has become almost normal in the politically charged discourse taking place these days between political parties and civilians in these yet to be United States of America. Before he became President of the United States, Barack Obama said in his heralded keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention (that nominated John Kerry to be the Democratic nominee for President), “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.” Sadly, however, soon after he became President and during his first months in office, Mr. Obama found out that indeed there is a bifurcated America and the split represents a nation at war with itself. Red conservative states are extremely far right wing and very angry that a black man occupies the office of the presidency, no matter Obama’s conciliatory outreach to that segment of the population. In fact, so-called elements of the right-wing philosophy (racist at its core, although they try to cover this up by wearing business suits instead of white sheets with coned hats and the letters kkk emblazoned for all to see) have made significant inroads into American institutions of culture — music, publishing, films, radio, and television.