The Christmas Season Has Begun

S. and I went to a party at our neighbor's house Saturday night. It was a low-key affair that doubled as a reunion for our neighbor's old co-workers, who had all once manned the regional commercial banking office for a national lender. We've attended the same party for a few years, so most of the faces looked at least vaguely familiar.

S. leaned over during a lull in the conversation and murmured under her breath "everyone here is networking."

"Baby, these people are commercial bankers. There are no jobs left. I mean, who are they going to lend to?"

As these things tended to do, the mood got a little lighter as the Brunswick Stew started disappearing and the booze started flowing. We talked about the economy. We talked about the government. We talked about the intricacies of the mortgage markets. We talked about paradox of our current banking dilemma - the amount of home equity homeowners no longer had that our nation's banks were still carrying on their balance sheets and our local tax commissioners were still assessing property taxes against.

And then we got to Tiger.

"Can you believe..."

"Did you see..."

"I heard that..."

There were no new jokes, just poorly told versions of the ones making their rounds on the internet. In the end it was the same old story - "the dog always chases the cat" - that we had been seeing on our TV's for the last two weeks.

By the time we were ready to leave, the pall that seemed to hang over the gathering had risen. Cheeks were rosy. Stomachs were full. Business cards had long since been tucked away. And thankfully, we had not been subjected to a single Christmas song for the entire evening.

The Christmas season has begun in earnest!!!

Comedian Paul Mooney Sums Up Christmas

"Santa Claus was good to everybody this year. He gave the black folks Obama and he gave the white folks O.J."

Paul Mooney

Sometimes it takes a comedian to tell us what's really going on. Right now, if you watch the news, it seems like we live in two Americas. Half of the country is afraid to even imagine what calamity could befall us next. They are petrified about the economy, hysterical about the Middle East conflict, and terrified of the unknown number of terrorists who are hard at work somewhere, plotting to attack the country.

The other half - well, okay, lets call it a third - this third is euphoric right now. It is as if they are wearing blinders that allow them to look past the economy, the fighting in the Middle East, and the terrorist threats to see the end of a bona fide rainbow. The light shining from the inauguration proceedings for Barack Obama has overcome the darkness of these perilous times for these people.

I am one of them.

And within this third of the country that is ready to celebrate the installation of our newest president next week, there is a sizable brown skinned contingent whose chests are swollen with pride. Whose minds are so focused on Obama's date with destiny next Tuesday in front of the U.S. Capitol building that they could care less about O.J., or Michael Jackson, or R. Kelly.

I am one of them.

Even though I laughed when I read it the first time, the thing Paul Mooney's joke gets at is the notion that white America needed to rebalance the traditional racial equation that the Obama campaign had thrown out of whack. That they intended to get this "bad negro" off the streets for life because he was found "not guilty" in the Nicole Simpson murder trial.

It wasn't so long ago, though, that O.J. was one of the most famous and beloved black people in the country.

His legendary commercial for Hertz Rent-A-Car, that showcased his record setting NFL legs in motion as he hurdled luggage strewn across an airport corridor in a suit with a briefcase, was so ubiquitous I still feel like running through the airport like he did whenever I am late for a plane.

"The Juice" had his own action figure. I got one for Christmas one year, complete with removable cleats and a washable Buffalo Bills jersey. It made me forget all about my G.I. Joe with the kung fu grip.

O.J. has seen hard times since those days. The "Trial of the Century" was so big that it spawned a legion of legal analysts. Almost all of the analysts who filled the airwaves this year with their analysis of potential legal dilemmas for the Obama campaign got their start fifteen years ago covering the O.J. trial.

Now we've got this new brother, Barack Obama, who has got us all - black white, latino - mesmerized. He is the toast of the town today. But there are going to be times, in the not too distant future, when he is going to make some decisions that will have comedians like Paul Mooney calling him "O'Tomma" instead of "Obama".

Don't get me wrong - I thought the joke was hilarious. I will be telling it for the rest of the week. But it was the picture above, with the black soldiers and the children of black soldiers standing in for the Obama family, that really underlined for me how easily many Americans could substitute in their minds one favorite black person for another - especially when the favorite black person began to rub them the wrong way.

I hope Barack Obama doesn't become the punchline of this same joke by next Christmas.

A Back To Basics Christmas

Frankincense and Myrrh

Last Saturday night, I stood in the cavernous kitchen of a million dollar home, in a room ringed with a crowd of some of Atlanta’s hardest working brown-skinned suburban citizens, listening along with everybody else as the hostess intoned during her pre-meal prayer that “we don’t know whether we will even be here a year from now”, a blanket statement that could have referred not only to her life, but the lives of everyone of us standing in that room.

It looks like the whole country, from top to bottom, will be facing some very trying times in the months ahead.

In this end of the year extravaganza we know as the Christmas/New Year’s holiday season, even in normal times, there is an awful lot of personal reflection that goes along with the turkey and the gift wrap and the eggnog. This year, it seems that many of us have gone beyond this usual level of introspection to do some actual soul searching as we reevaluate who and why we are in the face of the financial calamity the entire nation is facing.

“Somber” is probably the most accurate description of the general malaise that seems to be hovering over everything this week. This year I am sensing, as we spend less in the stores, that we are trying harder to reach out to connect with the people in our lives. In the gatherings I’ve attended so far, there is a heightened poignancy that envelopes the exchanges between us.

This is the kind of year where nobody cares if Santa is black or white or Jewish or Arabic or Indian – right now, I would imagine that all of us who have been playing at Santa for the last ten or twenty or thirty years wishes that the guy from the North Pole we used to believe in would come back, just this once, to bring a little joy and magic back to this most sacred of holidays.

A lot of us would just like to be able to forget, for a little while, the balancing act that we will be performing to make sure that the holiday cheer we are trying to enjoy over the next few days doesn’t have too big an impact on our survival during the next few months.

So if you are at home right now, trying to figure out what to do with all that extra time you have on your hands this year, since you have a lot less gifts to wrap, take it back to the basics of the Christmas season - call a few people up. If they’re not doing anything, invite them over. Or invite yourself over to their place. Put on some music, preferably something you grew up with, that evokes the times when you did believe there was a Santa Claus, or at least were able to rest comfortably in the knowledge that the people who were playing Santa could handle all of the details.

Remember the mission those three wise men were on. Revel in the fact that you are here, alive and kicking, just like that newborn was that they trekked to see and honor. Celebrate your relationships, even those that have frayed, or seem to be on their last legs. Rejoice in the ability you have to experience human intimacy. Take pride in those things you have accomplished this year, no matter how few and far between they may have occurred.

For tonight, give the soul searching a break, and let these things kindle the warmth and the spirit that still resides deep down inside you.

Have a joyous Christmas Eve, and a Merry Christmas!