Chanster

Remember 1992?!? Labour was forecast to sweep to victory in the weeks running up to the General Election. I remember it well. I wore my best suit on the day of voting, replete with a red rose in the top pocket. It was a bright and sunny morning, which I likened to the gods favouring the Labour Party. How wrong we were!!! I could not get out of bed over the week-end such was the state of shock I was in. How did Labour lose? All the pollsters got it wrong and in the final analysis, what happened? Simply this - people said one thing and did another. It could happen all over again come Election Day in November in the U S of A! Why? Because race matters and it is such a taboo subject for ordinary (middle and working class) Americans that they will simply say one thing to the pollsters, but may do something else in the confines of that tiny booth when only they and their conscience/God will determine how the good people of America vote. Here are three personal anecdotes to illustrate the extent to which race matters in the USA:-

1. I was at my best friend's wedding in Baltimore in April. He lives in an increasingly gentrified area called Locust Point adjoining another leafy suburb called Federal Hill near the Inner Harbour. I was astonished to discover that 65% of the population of Baltimore is black. Astonished because I rarely saw a black face in these areas during my time in the city. Unofficial racial segregation it appears is alive and well in modern day America. How can mutual understanding be fostered and developed if black and white Americans separate themselves physically and geographically in this fashion???

2. I was at the Gettysburg Museum in Pennsylvannia when my friends noticed that I was being gawked and pointed at by a bunch of American high school kids. It was as if they had never seen a Chinaman before. I do not know even where to begin to try and explain away the depths of this ignorance in modern day America, particularly when America is founded upon a nation of immigrants. Don't believe me? Study the surnames in any US telephone directory.

3. My friend, a banker in the City of London, was shopping in Macys, NYC when he noticed that he was being followed by the plain clothes store detective. Was the fact that he is black have anything to do with it or just plain old coincidence???

Can Barack Obama pull out the greatest illusion of all time by making all Americans colour blind?!? I believe he can with the force of his personality and the veracity of his policies. Look at the Latin words on the Great Seal - it says 'e pluribus unum' (from the many one). This is the trick that he has to pull off - by uniting all Americans together irrespective of race, creed, religion or colour.

Never underestimate Bill Clinton. The big dog did it again with his rousing support of Barack Obama and his denunciation of Republican policies. His oratory was a firm reminder that he was one of America's most intelligent and articulate Presidents. He summarised America's problems very neatly by pointing to economic recession at home and failed leadership abroad. There was also a memorable line which summed up US foreign policy quite succinctly when Clinton said that people around the world were more impressed by 'the power of the examples that America makes, rather than the examples of American power'. Take heed and I say again, unless the Republicans deviate from a militaristic foreign policy, America will survive long eneough to see itself become the villain and this process is happening now!