This coming November I’ll celebrate the election of the 13th U.S. President since I was born in 1944.* I was only an infant when FDR began serving his fourth term, and I barely remember Truman, but besides those two, I have an vivid memory of the remaining ten, and the impact they had on generations before and after mine.
Historically speaking, until now—besides the hard-line politically ambitious or diehards from the left or the right—the only presidential hopeful that excited and united all generations, especially the youth, was John F. Kennedy.
America’s youth embraced the Kennedy family like folks hugged their Teddy Bears a hundred years ago, during the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt. At the dawning of the Industrial Revolution and mass migrations, it was little wonder that the Teddy Bear became everyone’s best friend.
Today history is repeating itself in the presence of Barack Obama, the young and charismatic Illinois junior Senator who, defying all odds and obstacles, would be President in 2009, just 143 years after slavery was abolished by President Abraham Lincoln.
An Obama presidency will be good news to many disenfranchised groups—the shrinking middle class, service workers and organized labor—but he’ll also make an instant positive impact on our nation’s worst case at-risk kids. You can read about his stand on issues here:
Skeptical and cynical children who’ve lived most of their young lives at war—watching it on TV, playing video war games and living it in their homes and neighborhoods—will most certainly be impressed with Barack Obama’s underdog story.
Barack isn’t the first African-American to run for president and he’s not the first presidential candidate who was raised by a single parent. He’s certainly not the first to come from a less-than-wealthy family, and not the first to admit that he smoked a little pot as a youth. What makes Barack Obama different from any other presidential candidate in my memory is that he doesn’t run from his background: he embraces it. Young folks like that type of honesty.
Barack isn’t an O.G., of course, but in his community work, he traveled the mean streets of Chicago and learned how to become conversant with even the hardest of the hard-line Gs.
His youthful appearance and pristine family life are factors in the attraction, but from our kids’ point of view, he’s almost one of ‘em. He can speak in slang and he understands it. He doesn’t shy away from questions, nor stutter in his answers. [When confronted by the po-lice, every G knows that you can’t stutter and you got’ta answer the questions.]
Just a year ago, Barack Obama was a dark horse in the race to become President. Today he’s the frontrunner. Don’t you think that every young person, no matter how low they feel about themselves, can draw inspiration from that turn of events? Many young people today who’ve given up on the system showing any empathy for them can surely draw inspiration from Barack Obama. For the first time in their lives, they feel that their votes count and their voices matter.
And for the entire Hip Hop Generation, many just reaching voting age, there’s one more attraction to an Obama presidency: His name! Just think of all the tracks they’ll lay down for Ba-rack, because his name rhymes with their generation’s biggest icon, Tu-pac.
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*http://www.paralumun.com/prestimeline.htm
Franklin Roosevelt [1933-1945], Harry Truman [1945-1953], Dwight Eisenhower [1953-1961], John Kennedy [1961-1963], Richard Nixon [1969-1974], Gerald Ford [1974-1977], Jimmy Carter [1977-1981] , Ronald Reagan [1981-1989], George Bush [1989-1993], Bill Clinton [1993-2001], George W. Bush [2001- ].
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