Jalylah Burrell

Hello, Babar

Seattle-bred, Brooklyn-based cultural critic Jalylah Burrell riffs on anything and everything.

Now or Never?: The Black Body Politic

Posted 02/09/2008 at 8:33 AM | Comment?

So this morn, awoken by menstrual cramps, I blog hopped in an effort to take my mind off the shooting pain. Over at Perez Hilton's blog, I came across an irksome post citing Cher's comments to "Extra" about the Democratic horse race.

I like Hillary. I think she'd make the best president. I think [Barack]'s a good man. I think he's altruistic. I think he's smart. I think at some point he can be a great leader. I just don't think it's now.

Now, faded superstar Cher is not the first person to offer praise for Barack Obama, assert he is not yet ready for the Oval Office and then pledge enigmatic support for Clinton. Whenever I encounter Obama supporters, they clearly and enthusiastically explain his appeal but Clintonians, not so much. They are more likely to paternally dismiss Obama, for now, for lacking Clinton's "experience"-I'm with Chris Rock on the ridiculousness of a wife claiming experience at her husband's job even though I know that women's labor often goes unacknowledged and uncredited-if they offer any explanation at all. It's uncanny and befuddling. I am certainly riding for Obama but I can respect another person's sincere, if misled, decision to support someone else but I am unsettled that so many Clintonians' support is braced by the presumption that Obama can come later. I don't think I'm being hyperbolic here by invoking a passage from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter From a Birmingham Jail",

For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

And to place Obama's candidacy in starker relief, pun intended, here is a quote from Jimmy Breslin from this week's issue of New York,