Now that a mutt has been elected the President of America, people want to call him a Black and the African - Blacks make a claim on him as their own, while others too treat him as their own for he is half - white. Only his middle name seems to be a problem, Hussein. For obvious reasons. His Republican rival John McCain rubbed it on the American people in all his speeches in the initial stages to prejudice the minds of the voters who have not forgotten the 9 / 11.
McCain deliberately addressed him in his speeches as Barack Hussein Obama. Sick of this malicious innuendo, Obama, known for his ability to laugh at himself, jokingly said his name was not Barack Hussein Obama but Barack Steve Obama. Steve, as you know, like Joe, is a common Christian name used in a friendly manner. Soon McCain stopped that nonsense and the TV and press too followed the good example!
Indeed Barack Obama is a man for all reasons and for all seasons right now in America. It is not always a country like White America can get an ideal candidate in age, race, qualification and high acceptance level like Obama. This time America made it.
When White man was ruling India, he always thought he was a Good Samaritan come to help poor Indians and called his rule over us as a “White man’s burden”. Now, for Obama, it is a “Black man's burden”. After all, is he not expected to save America from its present economic “meltdown” and end all American foreign wars?
To call Black Africans and Black Americans as Negro as in the past or as “nigger” with contempt, is passion in a civilised world and among the cultured people. But not in the past 500 years when White Americans used to buy Black Africans in auction at the sea - port of Aden and other places and ship them like cattle or sheep to the mainland America. They were treated worst than the Dalits by the upper caste Hindus. For example, Motels and Hotels were off limits to Blacks with signs “For Whites Only”. The question of voting rights never arose. Blacks could not sit in the bus. Blacks should stand in the back.
In public places, there were water fountains separate for “coloured”. Just as we had separate wells for Dalits. Blacks could not sit in restaurants. They had to get their meals in a brown paper sack at the back door. Just as in India of old and even now in some parts where Dalits are given beverages in a separate cup or glass (carried by themselves) outside the hotel and in some cases not served at all.
Worse was when American Whites found it costly to get the Black slaves from far away Aden or other places, specially buying them in auction. The smart Alec, the White American man was and is, he hit upon the idea like the one adopted to get good cattle species with the help of a specially reared bull. In our country we used to call this bull, meant to mount the cow that had come to heat, as the 'Municipal Bull'. The Stud Bull. In order to keep the bull potent and powerful it used to be specially fed with rich diet of jaggery, fodder, green grass etc. And the term “Municipal Stud Bull” was used derisively against those who were debaucherous and profligate.
Be that as it may, to revert to our American Whites, it is in the pages of history that in order to cut costs on procuring labour to work in the farms and forests or for building roads and railway links, even White House, the residence of American President, the White American master hit upon a brilliant idea. He decided to rear quality labourers by getting the strong and healthy Black African male to procreate with Black women, just as the "Municipal Stud Bull", in Kannada called "Gooli" “Uncastrated male cattle.
From such a sinful past, America has come a long way today. Thanks to Black leaders like the dreamer Martin Luther King Jr. and now Barack Obama.
True, one sparrow does not make a summer. But, still, it is a new dawn for Black Americans to realise their dream as much as it is a new chance for White Americans to atone for their centuries of sins committed against the Blacks.
Here is wishing best of luck to Barack Obama.
