Elections...HOORAY! (<---facetious)

Surely the most exciting time of an Americans life every 4 years is presidential election time! YAAY! Incessant indoctrination, over heated emotion and conniving, manipulative politicians.  Basically a chance for the people we decided we trust the most to put up as many blinders to critical thinking as possible, mislead people until they have their trust and attention, and then exploit it for all it's worth.  I know this is a cynical view.  Please understand that my cynicism is less about the candidates, but is squarely placed on the process of selecting a president, the Americans who select the president, and the office of the President of the United States of America itself.

I figure the nature of the job would force you to have to make impossible decisions, between 2 wrongs, or compromise and do things you don't necessarily agree with.  It's got to be tough to deal with well over 300 000 000 voices and opinions.  Surely, whatever policy you adopt is going to be over-scrutinized and dissected and turned into a perversion of the idea.  Simply, the job is hard, it has to take an incredible human to assume that responsibility and do it well by the opinion of 51% of the population.  So making an informed and intelligent choice between candidates is extremely difficult, at best.

Samuel L. Jackson revealed in an interview with Ebony magazine that he simplified all of this in '08 by deciding he would vote for Obama because he was a black candidate.  The various comment sections for the article (it was written up by several news sites) are very heavily weighted on the side of (seemingly white) people who are disgusted that anyone would have taken race into consideration when voting, and I find their thought process seems to come to a screeching halt when they consider the racial implications.  At least this is what I hope, though my instinct is that on some level they have fully processed it and their conclusion was that it was a chance to point the finger and scream AHA! black people are generally racist too!  Personally, I voted for Obama because he was black.  Not because he had better ideas, or he was a Democrat, or he is kind-of from Chicago (like I am kind-of from Chicago).  My thought process included a reflection of past elected officials and the process of electing them.  I understood that I can't really believe what they are promising, Nixon put the kybosh on that decades ago.  I understood that a vote for the party I identify with the most doesn't say much for my vote, other than that I had adopted one of the 2 choices between parties. I also understood the implications of having a "black" president.  It gave me a chance to have meaningful commentary on my beloved nation.  And to me and Sam Jackson, the exclusivity of the white boys club was the most important issue that we were 100% sure our candidate could address.  Not even directly, he didn't have to preach racial equality.  By winning the presidency he empowered millions that are a part of the minority population.  He gave a voice and a feeling of hope to an entire race, and conversely anyone who is not white, and solidified that race cannot qualify you for president.  Before Barack Obama, I would have bet my life I would never see a black president, after him, my nephew wants to be the president and everyone in his family genuinely believe and encourage him to pursue his dream.  Even further, I'm optimistic we will have a female president soon.

I'm saddened that such a historic influence would be taken at face value and be branded as racist, and stupid.  In the end, it underlines the fact that America has swept the race issues under the rug even though Jim Crow laws were on the books as recently as 50 years ago, I suppose because the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1968, and that year the highest voter turnout among blacks ever was recorded.  Until '08.  With the influx of immigrants in this nation and the feeling that The American Dream is dying, we need more people who understand that empowering the entire nation to equally present opinions will quickly help us come up with sustainable solutions, and regain the international community's opinion of us as a rational, sane, and enviable nation.  It's sad I feel like racism is simply veiled now, just as sinister for anyone in my generation as it has been for generations before us, and when reading the comments on the silly article about Sam Jackson, it doesn't make me feel any more comfortable about what my children may have to endure.  

http://news.yahoo.com/samuel-l-jacksons-racist-reason-voting-obama-because-112400362.html