BARACK OBAMA
By Gigi

Who are the people who have been feeding Barack Obama stories that lead him to believe that he can be the next President of these United States? Was it his wife, or his many amorous female (and male) admirers? So Obama is running for president; the only thing different about him from the other Blacks who ran for President in the past, is that he’s well liked by White people. Obama is treated with the same kind of public interest and affection that Colin Powell had when he seemed ready to knock Bill Clinton out of the Oval office.

Well, I won’t be voting for him, even if he manages to become the democratic nominee for president in 2008; and no, it’s not because his mother is a White woman from Kansas or his father is from Kenya. Barack Obama does not share a heritage with the majority of Black Americans (notice I didn’t say African-American) who are descendants of plantation slaves. He stated himself in his book, “The audacity of Hope”, that although he has experienced some “light discrimination”, he cannot claim “the problem” as his own, because he has not lived the life as a Black American—that alone separates him from me, my parents and my ancestors.

Barack Obama has had a privileged upbringing in Honolulu and lived in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. His gold-plated academic credentials include: elite prep schools until high school, and then he attended Columbia University and Harvard Law school. Can’t be mad at him for that…but in my humble opinion, Obama doesn’t have enough national OR international experience to run for president in 2008. I don’t care how beguiling or charismatic he is…