November 4, 2008, was the most recent historically relevant day in American history. It was the day that Senator Barrack Obama became the country's first black president. Yeah yeah weirdos will argue just how "black" he is, but he is clearly of African-American descent, and regardless of where he was born and who raised him, he is considered a black man in my book. How good of a job did he do? I don't know, he was given a mess to sort through, and even though he probably didn't intend for it to be this way, but perhaps he had to let things get worse before they got better. Time will tell. On the day after his second successful presidential campaign, the president of my country, regardless of skin color, religion, or sexual preference, is my president. Regardless. Gotta root for the guy.
Enough of that. There were two moments I wish I could have recorded before and immediately after the election in 2008.
The K-Mart Incident
So, I was in line a couple weeks before the election at a K-Mart in Moorestown, New Jersey. If you ever waited in line in this store in 2008 you know the wait is terrible and the flow of lines is stupid. There is also an open space between two registers, so that you can stand in the middle and go to the next available lane, either to the left or the right. The lady in front of me was a diminutive Indian lady checking out with one last item on the left. The register on the right already had their sign lit up that they needed help from a manager to do basic math. K-Mart register operators, in my opinion and from my experience, have to be the least qualified people I have ever come across for that specific job. I am sure there are some very hard working people who do this job, but not where I have been. Anywho, the register on the right looks like it would take a while.
So one person decides to wait behind the right register. All of a sudden the lady at my register has a problem with a coupon or price check or something and I begin what would later be a very long 10 minute stressful wait. Meanwhile a black lady lines up in the middle, slightly favoring the left side behind me. A white family and several other black patrons are behind them. The Indian lady apologizes to me and I tell her not to worry about it I am in no rush. The right lane suddenly becomes operated by a respectable human being again and quickly checks out their patrons. Immediately thereafter, the white family proceeds to the right register, bypassing the black lady who was next in line. The lady, trying her hardest not to sound a hint ghetto, politely lets the man of the family know that she was next in line. The man says something to the affect that she was not paying attention and they thought she was in the left line. The family is being checked out. The black lady gets slightly heated and says that she should have been next regardless of what line opened up. The man laughs it off and says, "whatever lady." The black lady, who kept her cool up to this point followed up with this...
Hoooo boy I hope Obama gets elected because when he does this SHIT'S GONNA
CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know that deep voiced, arrogant sounding, threatening tone somebody makes when they are ready for a fight? That's how she said "change." It also took her about 3 seconds of stretching the word out. This made the man laugh as he gathered his family and crappy K-Mart products and left.
November 5, 2008 - The Day After
Through my job I have been lucky to work in some stellar cities like Elizabeth, Union, Union City, West New York, Mantua, Jersey City, Perth Amboy, South Amboy, New Jersey. No city is too dangerous for ol' Duba. However, I was tasked to go to East Orange up in Essex County. The population breakdown is 86.7% black, 7.9 percent hispanic, 2.2 percent white, and the rest are American Indians, Asians, Hawaiians/Islanders, other. There are 51 registered sex offenders here (1 in every 1,260 people), 6 to 22 murders per year over the last 10 years, 22 to 54 rapes per year in the same span, and 246 to 752 assaults per year. That is a troubling statistic. That is less than 1 to 2+ assaults per day. 2008 had 266 assaults, and I thought on this day I was going to be number 267 and 268.
So I stayed up all night on November 4, 2008. It seemed like Obama was starting to run away with it. But I was actually watching history live and wanted to live in the moment. I woke up and got to East Orange at around 6:30, waiting for the gates to open. As I sat there in my work truck in the street, cars driven by some of the 55,000+ black people were honking their horns at each other, yelling "Obamaaaaaaa" at me. That was weird, but I thought to myself, "Self, they are just happy that one of their own has obtained one of the highest positions in the world." All day long, they were yelling "Obama!" into our job site as me and my white work crew were working while looking over our shoulder.
Lunch break came and I went for a walk down to my deli as the Obama victory cry had subsided for at least an hour. The deli was one block from the site and could be seen from there. As I am about to cross the street to get to the corner, a black man approached me, started swaggering. ***Duba Note - I just tried Googling "Black Thug" to illustrate what the man looked like and proceeded to find black gay porn pictures*** He did that head bob, side to side movement that typically leads to no good. He approached me slowly, looked me in the eyes, and, I shit you not, said, "Obama!....motherfucker!" Can't argue with that.
What was intimidating was he just stood there, staring at me. I could only respond with, "Hey man I picked him, too." He went on his way.
And that is how the election of the first black President of the United States happened.
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