It is so important for us to be ourselves, to shine. Especially in the difficult moments, when we are called upon to navigate complex socio-cultural realities and feel weak, this is when we must remember our strength.

Remembering who we are, letting ourselves be big, moving forward with surety: this is the way human beings express our essential beauty. With intention and self-respect we create our own inimitable style. In the face of tremendous obstacles, we move with our own, unshakable grace.

If we feel fear, we do not let it win.

Olbermann Slams Clinton in Special Comment: "You Are Campaigning As If Barack Obama Were The Democrat And You Were The Republican" - Media on The Huffington Post

I found out today while doing an NPR interview and listening to Mary Frances Berry on air that Ferrarro said the same thing about Jesse Jackson when he ran for President.

It would behoove us to remember Rove-ian tactics and not have our heads in the sand re: the dems. Make no mistake: Hillary wants to be president and she will play the political game like the master players she and her team are. The issue of race is one play in a thick play book.

The question is whether Obama can recognize the level of the game afoot and win at it, while staying true to his aspiration for new politics (and not becoming completely demoralized). The people he's running against are doing old politics, and the world is watching to see how he manages it. He's going to have to beat politicos in his own backyard, or else how will he outplay them on a global stage?

A tough but exciting place to be.

The key is strategy, strategy, strategy. Obama needs his A Team.

Toni Morrison's Letter to Barack Obama | The New York Observer

I'm sure you've seen this, but I found it quite moving and eloquent.

He's going to win. Then it will be on to McCain.

Running on my Huffington Post Blog Today:

The Fence

As a bi-racial, Ivy-League educated, thirty-something feminist who campaigned for Bill Clinton, the election has me squarely on the fence. I love Barack's vision and know intimately the mosaic of ideas and experiences that helped shape it. I also feel a profound loyalty to Hillary who, after much sacrifice, has the chance to shatter the glass ceiling once and for all.

Gloria Steinem's op-ed in the NYTimes didn't help Team Hillary [full disclosure, GS is my godmother]. It crystallized for me that Hillary, no matter how symbolically potent, runs the risk of being seen as a Second Wave candidate. She's one of the first women to gain power and access, and may be one of the first with power and access to ignore the criticisms of women of color, progressive men, and many young women, all of whom have been sending clear messages to Second Wave feminist leadership for well over a decade.

Messages like:

Women are not only victims, but active participants in the shaping of their lives. It's not Hillary's gender that may keep her from winning this election, it's her lack of preparation. If she had an inter-generational, multi-racial, digitally savvy, globally inclined machine behind her, crafting electrifying rhetoric like The Audacity of Hope and The Power of Now, she'd be swept into the White House by a landslide. Hillary wasn't forced into the number two position in Iowa, she made decisions that put her there. New Hampshire is a case in point; she made different decisions and got different results.

Racism and classism are as definitive as sexism. Did Steinem insinuate that Barack's gender, and not his talent, put him in the top spot? I thought black men were capable of performing at his level without an irrationally granted advantage. And the idea that black men always reach the Promised Land before white women? Forty per cent of black men don't finish high school in America, and one in four are incarcerated. Hillary, and her feminist supporters, are not going to win this election by glossing over the realities of African-American men.

Men are not the enemy. Steinem claims that sexism is responsible for Hillary's loss in Iowa, implicitly accusing men-at-large of devaluing women, while many of them may simply be more inspired by a candidate who happens to be a man. This type of divisive discourse that judges and alienates the many men who support the women in their families, communities, and the civic sphere every day is not only bad for women, it's bad for Hillary's campaign. Obama is running as a uniter. Hillary needs to avoid re-inscribing historical divisions in order to gain ground.

And, finally:

Young women are not stupid. The idea that young women are too naive to realize the pervasiveness of sexism is an old Second Wave trope used to dismiss and discredit an entire generation, many of whom now support Obama because he doesn't insult them. As a result, there are a few women lining up behind the "feminist" placard, but many more running in the other direction.

Far from being ungrateful or unintelligent, these women know that confrontational political labels and a religious fixation on gender aren't productive. They, rightly, choose to enjoy the rights they should have had all along, and find other, more complex approaches to righting the rampant injustice in the world. Hillary's gender is not enough to win their vote, and she needs to show them that she knows it.

So while there's still plenty of time for Hillary to win me over, Obama is looking pretty good at the moment. He's listened to what many of my generational peers and I have been saying for the last decade, and his momentum proves it.