Marissa Calhoun, Reporter Demo (CNN)

12/23/2010

"Today's Headlines/ News Cut-In's" 

"I am hungry. I have nothing. Can I please have some food. You can give me anything you want."

     The more God blesses me, the heavier the burden he places on my heart. As I sat at work complaining about having to be here on Christmas Eve, I decided to go across the street and grab a salad from Union Station. The place was swarming with homeless and poor people. I was annoyed by one lady who followed me around the entire store for 35 cents. After I had finished my window shopping and talked my self out of that new pair of shoes, I went into Chopt' for a salad. A man walked in and kindly said to the merchant "I am hungry. I have nothing. Can I please have some food. You can give me anything you want." The merchant immediately responded by offering the man any salad he wanted to have on the menu. My heart sank an my eyes swelled with tears; that was the spirit of Christmas. As I rode back to work, I had to ask myself "why you tripping? You seen homeless people before. Hell, you work in DC you see them all the time." This experience was different for me. This man appeared to be an ordinary man; he seemed to have ordinary luck. He spoke well, and was fully clothed and clean. This man could have been anyone-- he could have been me. In the eve of a recession and in the wake of the personal storms so many people are experiencing, this holiday season should be a time for reflection. I may not ever have everything I  want in this life, but I have a life that does not reduce me to having to beg in order to survive.  Tomorrow as I gather around a table and laugh with my beautiful family creating new memories I will do so bearing in mind that so many people have no memories to recollect, no family to visit with, and no food to eat. I may not be a millionaire with all the riches in the world, but I have been blessed and I am rich with love and opportunity. I can use this to glorify myself and build my own pedestal or I can use this to build the Kingdom of heaven here on earth. As far as I'm concerned every man and woman poor or rich, weak or strong, broken or beloved deserves a seat at His table. As far as I'm concerned so long as His cup overflows we all deserve to eat! May God bless this man and his life and all the others who are without food and shelter this holiday season. And may God continue to advance and use me so that I may repay my debts to him through others in need. "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours in the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh." Luke 6 vs. 201-21

Go to the Mat, President Obama! Examining President Barack Obama’s Core Values and Ability to Fight for the American Middle Class

Go to the Mat, President Obama!

Examining President Barack Obama’s Core Values and Ability to fight for the American Middle Class

Flash back to 2008, cameras flash and lights glimmer. All eyes are on the first African-American President of the United States whose rhetoric and prose left most of us spellbound. A resounding “yes we can” rang clearly throughout the crowds of people flooding the streets of DC during Inaugural weekend. I was one of those people. I attended Uncle Rush’s Presidential Inaugural Celebration Ball hosted in Barack Obama’s honor on behalf of hip-hop. I let the tears flow as I looked up to see our brown-skin President and First Lady romance to Etta James; at last we had all come along. I was proud to share that moment with hip-hop. It brought us all together—the beat boxer and the boardroom brothers and sisters—with a certain sense of sophistication and pride that we had never known before. We sent the world a very clear message about how far we had come as a country that night.

Soon after the celebration ended, the elevated sense of euphoria faded, all eyes were on the White House. What would the President do first? What would be his order of priorities moving forward? President Obama had made allot of campaign promises and galvanized much of his support on the premise and promise of hope and change. But what exactly did hope and change mean? Coincidentally enough it could mean completely different things to everyone. The reality is that President Obama ran on two very vague campaign principles which were great for slogans and rebel rousing but didn’t do so well as tools of governance. The truth is hope and change will strike a chord with everyone: Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.  Nonetheless when it comes to making smart delegation decisions about serious issues like healthcare, the national deficit, the national budget and creating jobs its fair to expect that the perspectives of all parties involved won’t intersect in order to weave some sort of mythical “more perfect union.”

We are seeing this anecdote play out in a series of current political debates. Healthcare; the Democrats can’t get enough of it, it makes the Republicans sick and the Independent’s are indifferent on the issue to say the least. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Well there is a question with no concrete answer. Two years ago when I cast my first vote ever in a Presidential campaign, I voted for a man who I believed would stand-up for the rights of the disenfranchised.  Against all odds I was prepared to back him and believed that he would act diligently in the best interest of the American people. Not just Democrats and Republicans—but everyday people whose sweat and blood built the bridges we cross and maintained the roadways; everyday people who were the first in their families to graduate from college and who returned home in recent years jobless and overwhelmed by student-loan debt; everyday people, who work in the hospitals that they can’t afford to get sick in; everyday people who are loosing their homes in foreclosure and jobs to lay-off’s; everyday people who unlike big business can’t just phone in for a government bail-out. Who is going to bailout us everyday people?

Today, the President stood before a press conference and announced that for those people he would not fight. Today, the President verbally traded two years of Bush era tax-cuts and estate tax-cuts for the wealthiest American’s for only 13 months of extended unemployment benefits for those American’s who are jobless as a result of a down spiraling economy. In total, this agreement if passed by congress will add 900 Billion dollars to our grandchildren’s debt and deepen the hole which the Bush era undoubtedly dug for us. A recent CNN Opinion Research Poll shows that only one-third of American’s favor a tax cut extension for the wealthiest American’s. I find it rather puzzling that President Obama would settle for an agreement which hampers the agenda of the American people without a fight, a campaign slogan, something? This does not coincide with the principles he so eloquently outlines time and time again in his rhetoric. This further display’s the lack of stamina that his administration will have in the marathon to the 2012 Presidential election. It is not enough to talk politics anymore. The honeymoon season is over. People want, need, and expect change. Not just the kind they can believe in, but the kind the can feel and touch.

It is time for President Obama to put one foot on the shoulder of Dr. King and the other on the back of Malcolm X in order to achieve the dream for the American middle class by any means necessary. It’s time for President Obama to stand up because we have been sitting on the hands of hope and change far too long. We must not see the future of our country go up in a smoke of political warfare. We need a President who has the audacity to do more than hope, but rather to also act in our best interest.  Has President Obama lost his grass roots? —it seems he has divorced the struggle and is currently engaging in an affair with “politics as usual.” Go to the mat President Obama, the time has come to fight!