Recently I’ve been thinking about Barack Obama, Henry Louis Gates, Van Jones, and Greenbridge.

When tension around race comes up, our society has a really difficult time differentiating between individual incidents of incivility and patterns of bias. South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson thinks that an apology for his single act of disrespect is enough. But others see his “You Lie” comment towards the President to be part of a larger racial pattern questioning Obama’s authority. Henry Louis Gates saw being arrested in his own home in the light of a larger pattern of racial profiling. The police officer who arrested him thought he was just arresting a guy who threatened his authority.

Closer to home, Greenbridge and its developers continue to come under criticism for gentrifying Northside, and some attacks this summer called the Greenbridge developers racist. UNC-NOW and other Greenbridge critics see this project as a part of the larger pattern of African-American displacement in Chapel Hill. Not surprisingly, Greenbridge’s developers say they’re just one project impacting the neighborhood, and one that came relatively late to the gentrification party at that.

From Saturday's Herald-Sun/CHH:  "President Obama's plan to give a televised speech to the nation's students Tuesday might be causing a ruckus in some locales....
But Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Neil Pedersen has sent a note encouraging principals and teachers to make Obama's speech available to students Tuesday at noon if schedules permit.
Obama plans to urge students to work hard, set goals and to take responsibility for their educations. President George H.W. Bush gave a similar back-to-school address in 1991 and so did President Ronald Reagan before him."

No single episode has spotlighted the crazed, anti-Obama monomania of Republicans as well as this one.  There's such a stunning lack of acknowledgment of their own inconsistency that we could stand in awe if it weren't part of a larger, yet more irrational and predatory mindset. 

I have been hearing about a lot of inauguration-related activities going on this weekend and through Tuesday. I'd rather not have them clog up the calendar, but I thought it would be helpful to list them all in one place. Here's what I know about so far, please post additional events and let us know how you're observing this landmark event.

Century Center - 5-10 p.m. (Free!)

Southern Rail Dance Party - 8 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. ($10 cover)

I apologize for my long absence.

Here is an update on what is happening locally, post-Obama campaign, among the folks who want to keep the spirit alive and help make change happen!

Last Sunday, there were three "House Parties" held around the County. One in Carrboro, another in North Carrboro and a third in Hillsborough. (I don't know the total attendance, I was at N. Carrboro and we must have had two dozen or more people.)

When we started, before Thanksgiving, we were sort of groping in the dark for how we were going to organize. It has begun to galvanize, but we are still dealing with communication issues, like too many emails about too many subjects! It reminds me of the early days of the Primary, which is a good thing.

Here are the three major things that are happening right now:

The Obama team and Democrats are acknowledging that an economic stimulus plan equal to 4%-5% of US GDP is needed.  In other words 500-700 Billion dollars are needed for investing toward infrastructure as a means of creating jobs to stimulate the economy.

If there is anything of value that we may have learned from the previous local discourse on the global economic crises I would hope that it is: it is healthy to read between the lines of the national discourse mainstream setting media (i.e. NPR, The New York Times, CNN, and all mainstream corporate media to the right of these). 

Before taking another message and echoing and parroting again, lets take stock of where the financial bailout has put us.

Having been very active during the Primary and my wife very active during the General Election, we went to lots of victory parties!

The omnipresent question was "What now?"

I met Stan at such a party and, being of like mind and sense of making something happen, he and I decided to answer that question.  So, we met a couple of times and exchanged some email and phone calls and Stan wrote up a document explaining our ideas. 

Then we invited a group of people to my house to discuss the document.  This blog contains my thoughts from that meeting....

We had several of the "Crew Chiefs" from the Obama 'Campaign for Change' who were the folks that managed several precincts during the campaign.  We also had some folks who may not have had titles but worked their tails off most of the year toward the same goal.  (I don't want to post names here as I did not get permission for that).