Results tagged “Judging” from LTG Blog

Riding on a crowded Lexington Avenue Subway right before Obama’s overseas trip, I overheard the two middle-aged black guys standing next to me, their leather briefcases tucked between their suit pants on the train floor as they rode uptown.

“Man, Barack better be careful over there! One misstep and McCain’ll be all over him like white on rice,” the taller one said.

“You know they’re just waiting for that. He says one thing wrong, it’ll be back to why Black people better stick to domestic issues. Can’t handle those foreign countries,” the shorter one with the purple silk tie replied.

“Yeah, you know how it is. Obama mess up once, then it’s all about what we can’t do in the first place…You just gotta’ worry for the brother…”

So Jesse Jackson wants to cut Barack Obama’s nuts off. Geez, Jesse what was in your coffee that morning you went on Fox News, of all places, and spilled what was truly in your heart? No matter. Deed’s done. That an elder would unleash such Lear-like hostility at one younger, who is deemed on the way up, got me to thinking once again about fathers and sons.

A chapter in the compelling story of the American Dream has always centered on the image of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, passing on their lessons from one generation to the next, openly proud of their off springs’ achievements, quietly hopeful that they keep moving up the ladder of success beyond the rung at which they have landed.

Maybe that chapter needs a re-write. My father, never quite as comfortable with words as Jackson, focused on actions. Even at ten, I could hold a stage the way my father never could, being chosen to M.C. local Grange events for talent shows and parties. As verbally quick as he was tongue-tied, I drew my mother’s attention whenever chosen to star in a Christmas play or if I won a spelling bee.

Enough to make a father proud?