Over the years I’ve had my fair share of awkward interactions with white people: Everything from them openly wondering why they can’t say the N-Word, rudely touching my hair with child-like amazement, weird attempts of them trying to “black friend” me whenever they find themselves accused of racism, to them telling me that I’m “pretty smart for a black guy“. Pretty standard stuff for any black person you talk to. But the one thing that baffles me most of all is when I see a white person never considering racism to be an issue. A group of hooded white men could burn a cross in someone’s yard, spray paint the word “Nigger” all over that person’s house and some white person somewhere would say, “Come on, that isn’t racist!!“

I’ve thought a lot about some white people’s inability to see racism recently with the scores of “If only the President invited Republicans to cocktail parties” articles that have come out. Whether it’s the Ron Fournier variety, where he suggests that all the President needs to overcome GOP obstruction is to have a coach give him a pep talk – or the Maureen Dowd variety, where she suggests that lack of leadership is the only thing keeping the President from swaying a garden variety of knuckle-dragging bigots in constant fear of being primaried. I swear, it’s like Fournier and Dowd fell into a coma during the President’s first inauguration and woke up yesterday.

Listen, I know for many of you simply saying that racism is the root of GOP obstruction might look too simplistic or just downright lazy. Sure, you could say that Republican recalcitrance is solely based on just them having fundamental differences of opinion – but that falls flat in it;s face when you consider that many of those same Republicans previously held the exact view point as the President on a plethora of issues. Also, to the dismay of many liberals, the President has gone a lot more than half way in Republican’s direction time and time again just to reach a deal. I guess you could say that the rise of the tea party has usually sensible Republicans giving Michelle Bachmann a run for her money in the “crazy as catshit department“, just because they are terrified of being Primaried. OK, what is the root of a primary scare? Yes, simply agreeing with the President on at least one thing. It feels like you are on some fucked up version of “Let’s Make a Deal“, there seems to be racism behind every door.

Listen, I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of white people not understanding how racism works in the age of Obama – I just wish those piece came from the Onion. At least my laughter would be the intended effect.

People from all over the political spectrum were justifiably outraged a few days ago when the NRA put out an ad referencing the President’s daughters. The ad starts off with the narrator saying:

“Are the President’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?”

Pretty disgusting stuff, no doubt about that – and pretty much everyone that I’ve seen with a pulse(outside of that smirking nincompoop S.E Cupp) feels that the ad is utterly reprehensible. But I think that something deeper, and believe it or not, even more sinister is going on here. With right wing talkers lathering up their drooling devotees over what turns out to be pretty sensible gun reforms by the President, and people going to gun stores in droves because of it – I saw that NRA ad as nothing but an assassination dog whistle. Or as one of my twitter followers characterized it, assassination “bullhorns“. I mean, the ad was just oozing with “Not only is the guy with the falsified birth certificate going to take your guns away, his uppity ass has his daughters in fancy schmancy schools and shit – totally rubbing your nose in it. That has got to piss you off. What exactly do you plan to do about that?”

I know that the President plans to hit the road to promote his gun reform measures, which I think is a best way for him to get his message out there – but I just hope and pray that none of these inbred morons tries anything. If so, I’m sure the secret service will promptly partake in the fine art of cap peeling if anyone of these idiots, to quote my Jamaican friend Henry, “Gwan test“.

One of the most profound things I’ve ever read on twitter goes a little something like this: Twitter will have you loving people you never met, and Facebook makes you loathe people that you’ve known your entire life. Truer words have yet to be spoken.  Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with loved ones and friends, marvel at the colossal overshares by those same folks, and taking great joy in finding out that the lives of people who ever did you wrong are in complete fucking shambles. But the best function of Facebook, in this writer’s humble opinion, is outing people that you’ve known your entire life as racists by simply posting a few favorable things about the President.

Case in point: On the night of the election I was exuberant, so I promptly went to Facebook to express said exuberance like any other red blooded American who sincerely thought that Mitt Romney was a lying piece of shit. Well, immediately I got a barrage of nasty replies from a couple of dudes that I’ve known my entire life. These Gentlemen, if you asked me about them before the election while Sodium Pentothal flowed through my veins, “bigot” is a word that would have never escaped my hairy mandible. I won’t go into any reply verbatim, but here are a few buzzwords of note: “Communist”, “Muslim”, “Destroy America”, “Obamaphones”, “America Killed itself”, and “Free stuff”.

I’ve thought about that particular social media unmasking every time I see some white person completely losing their shit because America re-elected the black guy to a second term. Like the Key West man who committed suicide, all the shitloads of people who want to secede, the lady who ran over her husband for not voting, the employer who shitcanned 22 of his employees, the CEO of the shittiest pizza in the world cutting back his workers’ hours, the disturbances at Ole Miss, the stockpiling of guns, the 4th Grade teacher who dressed up in all black and told her students that she was attending America’s funeral because of the President’s re-election.. I’m sure there are a lot more, but you get the picture.

White people, please calm the fuck down. Seriously. Any rational observer who doesn’t have a penchant for eating paste and licking glass will tell you that the President is the furthest thing from a radical. He’s trying to help you toothless rubes for Christs sake. I know, I know. At the end of the day I know none of that matters. We have a black President and the mere fact that he has melanin means that life as you know it is over. While I can’t reason with you, at least let me ask you to channel your bat-shittedness more productively. I mean, if you are going to be mad at anyone it should be at the conservative media who routinely lied to you about Mitt Romney’s chances. If they were more honest with you bottom feeders, at least a little bit, maybe you wouldn’t be acting nuttier than squirrel shit. But then again you are bigots, there is no rhyme or reason to your knuckle-dragging antics. Now excuse me while I go on facebook to see who else I can erase from my life.

I think it’s safe to say that the 1st debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney is one for the history books. Despite the fact that I feel the President didn’t do nowhere near as bad as people thought he did, pundit hyperventilation and hand-wringing had framed the narrative that the President absolutely got his clock cleaned. That meme was so ingrained that I expected to hear some talking head late Tuesday night say, “Yeah, the President was just re-elected, but what about that 1st debate?”

But now that the smoke has cleared from Tuesday night – and after I’ve successfully told as many Republicans on twitter that they can “go fuck themselves” and performed extremely spirited 80′s era endzone dances in the faces of people that I know to be unrepentant bigots – I’ve come to the conclusion that the 1st debate turned out to be just as harmful to Mitt Romney. What that 1st debate did was give Mitt Romney false hope. If you remember, Romney had been getting massacred by Team Obama ever since he won the nomination. Matter of fact, up until the 1st debate you’d be pretty hard pressed to find a single week that the ex Massachusetts Governor actually won. So, the first debate came and went – and sure Romney got a little bump. Chris Matthews damn near had a coronary. Andrew Sullivan had to have his shoelaces taken away and was on suicide watch. Liberals were acting like stereotypical black characters in Vietnam movies. But despite the hoopla the math was never really there, and any lead that Romney ever had quickly returned to pre-1st debate levels.

But with Conservative media living in it’s own bubble, poll deniers and people actually believing their own spin aplenty – Mitt actually thought that he could win this thing. And that’s why I feel that the 1st debate was bad for Mitt Romney – it not only kicked his entitlement into high gear where I think it lent itself to overconfidence, it set his supporters up to be absolutely crushed in the event of a Romney loss.

See, even though John McCain supporters in 2008 were highly upset that he was defeated – Sarah Palin had been making a horse’s ass of herself for months and his campaign was in constant flail mode – Republicans, if they were honest with themselves during that campaign, had to admit that they didn’t need to be clairvoyant to see concession speeches in John McCain’s future. The reason why the anger this time from Republicans is so visceral, despite damn near every poll showing the President leading in Ohio and an electoral college path for Romney that looked awfully narrow – was because of the false glimmer of hope that that first debate provided. It’s like losing a loved one after their long battle with a terminal illness as opposed to the the sudden death of a loved one – there is sadness either way, but you are more emotionally prepared for the former. Hence the current batshit behavior.  Hence Mitt being “Shellshocked“. I definitely look at that 1st debate in a different light now.

I have to say, despite all of the failing pundit talking points that rightly deserve our ridicule and outright mocking – everything from outside of the margin poll leads by the President being characterized as a “dead heat” to a nonexistent “Mittmentum” that has only recently stopped being talked about – my favorite media drooling involves the narrative that the President’s campaign had no “Grand vision“. Or some exasperated beltway hack saying that this is “most depressing election” that they’ve ever covered – something that I’ve always gathered is their way of saying that they aren’t used to Democrats fighting back. But my best way of answering the aforementioned complaints is to say that the President can only compete against the competition that is in front of him.

Have you ever seen a boxer in the purest since of the word, someone who truly exemplifies the phrase “the sweet science“, go against an opponent whose only interest is throwing elbows, headbutts, and hitting immediately after the break? As much as the boxer may want to stick to his game plan of controlling the fight with his jab, counter-punching, and quick footwork – there will be a time when he will be forced to mix it up with his opponent, proving that he can do close quarters combat as well. Mitt Romney has shown himself to be someone willing to say whatever he has to say to get elected. The blatantly false ads, the continuous capitalizing on out of context quotes, the dog-whistle politics, him holding every position imaginable on every issue, etc. People complain that the 2012 Obama campaign doesn’t have the same poetry as 2008, and that may be true – but it’s hard to exhibit the sweet science of politics if your opponent has contempt for both politics and the American electorate. This campaign may not be as pretty as some pundits may have liked, but then again most scraps aren’t. And Mitt Romney built that.

In a pretty horrific week, where Hurricane Sandy took at least 50 lives and wreaked havoc on pretty much anything that crossed it’s path – there was at least a silver lining in the middle one of the most terrifying Hurricanes in recent memory: That proverbial Ray of sunlight was Lydia Callas. A few days ago I just happened to watch Mayor Bloomberg’s Press conference where he addressed the subject of the Hurricane as it pertained to his city, I must have been between switching channels at the time, when his sign language interpreter happened to catch my attention. It didn’t take me but a few moments to figure out why, it was the mere expression in which she exhibited her craft: The exaggerated expressions on her face, the extra seasoning on her hand movements, the way in which she put her entire body into every word that she signed – the mere flavor she exhibited made me want to befriend a hearing impaired person just so I could get the motivation to learn sign language. It was a thing of beauty. It was as if she was talking to her homegirl and not translating for the Mayor of New York City during a crisis. I want to hang out with Lydia Callas. I want her to be my sign language hype-woman if I ever decide to grab the Mic and terrorize lesser wordsmiths. I want her to translate the marriage proposal that I deliver to my lady even though I’m sure there won’t be a hearing impaired individual within a square mile. Not for nothing, but I’m going to start putting Michael Bloomberg speeches on my DVR.

Oh, before I forget, peep the part where the Mayor starts speaking Spanish. Ms. Callas shuts down her sign language on some “Yeah, that’s a bridge too far” shit. Absolutely hilarious.

One of the things that my father drilled into my head growing up, besides the correct way to administer devastating neck strikes to ornery opponents and how to break down a rifle in record time – was that I had to work six times as hard as my white counterparts to get ahead.(I’m sure millions of African Americans have gotten the same sage-like advice.) I’ve been thinking a lot about my father’s words as I’ve watched this election unfold. From the debates, where the President clearly won the second and third events – the press made it their business to either declare the debates a tie, or to exhaustively say that the Obama wins wouldn’t move the polls all that much. Shit, we don’t have to look no further than the two men themselves: One, with a business career that depended on shitcanning workers and sending their jobs overseas, a Gubernatorial record so spotty that he knew he couldn’t get re-elected, and a Presidential campaign so cynical that it treats the American electorate like google never existed. The other, saved the automotive industry, prevented the economy from total collapse, passed health care, not only killed Osama Bin Laden but has a slew of bad guys taking permanent dirt naps right about now.. And this motherfucker is tied. Tied.

I thought about my dad’s words again today in terms of how much it takes for the media to shine a light on racism directed at the President.

Let me interrupt this regularly scheduled program to thank the media for telling me when it’s alright to be offended. I guess white people have to tell me these things. I mean, John Sununu’s latest public drooling about Colin Powell endorsing the President because of the color of his skin is actually some of his more pedestrian racism. From implying that the President was a drug abuser, calling the him “lazy”, the political bullhorn that was his “I wish this president would learn how to be an American” comment, and him waxing poetic about our Commander in Chief’s lack of class. This shit isn’t new, and making a big deal about it now just makes me angry – the same way someone should be pissed about the police showing up at their door a good hour an a half after altering them of a home invasion. Also, I’ve seen a lot of writers that I respect do pieces on Sununu’s comments today. Well,  fuck you too. Where were you?

When I think about all that this President has to face for re-election: SuperPAC money where racist billionaires drop 20 million dollar checks like it was beer money. Widespread voter suppression efforts. A lazy media with a boner for a horse race. Unchecked racism. I think the President will win re-election, but only because he knew that he had to be six times better.

I don’t know how I feel about the theory that the President plays 3-Dimensional Chess with his adversaries – but I am of the firm belief that our Commander in Chief subscribes to one of Bruce Lee’s famous combat philosophies. Bruce Lee always stressed the importance of remaining calm during a fight: In doing so you conserve energy, and also have a clarity that lends itself to taking advantages of your mistakes brought on by their emotion and wasted energy. See Hillary Clinton. See John McCain. Witness Mitt Romney in real time. If the President is re-elected, and I suspect he will, it will be because the right’s extreme hatred leaving them exposed: Personhood Amendments, Transvaginal Ultrasounds , Paul Ryan’s budget, listing the crazy would take me all week. But today I’m totally buying the much talked about 3-Dimensional chess strategy of the Obama campaign that I’ve been hearing about.

OK, this story goes a little something like this: The President spoke with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board to lobby for their endorsement, but one of the conditions was that the conversation was to be off the record. The paper’s editor-in-Chief pitched a fit, then soon after the Obama campaign proceeded to give the OK on releasing the transcript. Here’s the thing, besides it being a pretty good read, there was nothing controversial in the aforementioned transcript whatsoever. What better way to get your message out there then to act like you originally wanted it off the record. I think this passage from the President is a dead fucking giveaway:

“The second thing I’m confident we’ll get done next year is immigration reform. And since this is off the record, I will just be very blunt. Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community.“

The “since this is off the record” part just to proceed to say something that the President always says, that he’s on the side of the Latino community and that the Republicans hate them? And wouldn’t you know it, that is precisely the part that I’ve seen cable news outlets focus in on all day. A master stroke Mr. President, you are playing chess with these checkers playing motherfuckers. Oh, Des Moines Register, you just got rolled.

I really wasn’t going to write about this, I thought that my support for President Obama had me overreacting just a bit. Also, my reluctance to flex my rhetorical biceps on the subject was colored by everyone on the cable landscape treating the whole affair as a momentary cease fire between two men who don’t really like each other all that much. A lighthearted gathering where two people running for the highest office in the land got a chance to show off their barely seen comedic side. But you know, something kept bugging me about that Al Smith dinner a few nights back – the same way that having a winning retort two days too late bugs you.

If anyone has ever seen these Alfred E. Smith dinners, the New York based fundraiser for Catholic charities, both candidates get up there and perform stand-up routines to the best of their abilities. Sure, shots are thrown at each other but they are of the pedestrian nature at best. Most of the routines delivered are more self deprecation than anything. That’s what bothered me about Mitt Romney’s routine, he knew all of that and decided to go all in regardless. His act felt like he just took parts of his campaign stump speech and simply added punchlines. Where the President playfully chided Mitt Romney and took most of his allotted time making fun of himself, Romney felt the need to make cheap political points disguised as humor.

Listen, we all know that Mitt Romney is a dick. Hell, you can’t find a member of Mitt Romney’s family who isn’t a dick. But those routines were truly a window into who these men truly are: One, magnanimous, secure in himself to be mercilessly self deprecating. The other, a craven political opportunist, willing to take a healthy shit on decorum just for the sake of cheap political point scoring. I have to ask, why is this thing close again?

Now that the President has a commanding debate performance under his belt, and polls seem to be going back to normal as a result of the aforementioned drubbing- the President seems to be really hitting his stride. Today in Virginia, instead of going my route and calling Mitt Romney a “lying piece of shit“, the President decided to coin the term “Romnesia” – a condition that has a certain Massachusetts Governor saying anything to get elected. Being against abortion in all cases in the Republican Primary, now being against abortion only in cases of rape, incest, and health of the mother. His refusal to say whether he supports the Lilly Ledbetter act, even though he claims that he’s for equal pay for equal work. His back and forth on giving a tax cut to the 1%, and a litany of other things that the President brilliantly lays out in the video above.

On the surface it looks like the “Flip flopper” charge, but I think its more than that. I think it’s the President forcefully informing the electorate that you simply can’t trust Mitt Romney. So yeah, he’s basically calling Mitt Romney a “lying piece of shit” in so many words. And I like it.