(Above) ART EXHIBIT : "THE ASSASSINATION OF BARACK OBAMA": PHALLIC IMAGES AND THE THREAT OF DEATH. The exhibit was raided by police and closed, and the artist questioned by authorities, but it left lingering questions about residual racism.
Growing Blogospheric tensions about White Supremist Groups and the Inauguration
White Supremacy spews its hatred, and Secret Service Agents cannot convince Barack to wear his bullet-proof vest. So what's a nation to do, when the beloved will not take danger seriously? I have lost much sleep over this poetential calamity which seems to grow ever more reality-based; but then, isn't it true, that often those things we fear most are those which do not actually take place? That exhibition is hard to read: Is it racism, or a satire of it? The phallic imagery a tribute, or a slur on the African-American male? The "nappy headed" kids, the "Once you go Barack": a plea of love, or a deep seated hatred, emerging from our history like the dank deposits of a well? In the December 9 edition of the St. Louis Tribune, it was reported that within a two week period, more than 200 anti-Obama incidents had been reported to the police. All in all, racism has receded within polite society: academia, the corporate domain, and the entire middle class landscape have gone politically correct and quite respectably "multicultural". But the Jugnian shadow, if not confronted in good faith - and I do not believe political correctness has been fully an agenda of either authenticity or good faith - will come back in some convoluted form, welling up from the dark recesses of the national psyche and its terrain of shadows. Hopefully, the threat will be contained, and there will be no reliving of 1968, nor 1963, nor 1865.
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