Yep. That's me... but I actually have more hair now... than then.More importantly, that's the woman that I've mentioned from time-to-time in these pages, especially as I was heading to the Democratic National Convention this year. I dedicated my visit and coverage from the floor in Denver to her. The Library of Congress thought it was pretty good, as well.
My great-grandmother, Mary Margaret McCune, was a committed Democrat and a community organizer of the first degree ...from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. More specifically, from the New Deal wing of our big-tent party.
I like posting her picture (after I finally, finally found it!) on the 25th anniversary of democracy here in Argentina. I think she would like that, too.
I caught a lot of crap during the '60's and '70's for referring to myself as an un-reconstructed New Deal Democrat ...after that, it didn't seem to matter how I referred to myself ...as the good ol' US of A slipped into the Reagan-Democrat phase of our party ...then, into where we are now.
But I was schooled at her knee. She knew the value of the Federal government backing the opportunity of Americans to protect their own homes, to be protected from the excesses of the market-place, to reward veterans for their service, and to guarantee our participation in the democracy that is allowed to us in this Republic.
Come Tuesday, however, we're gonna be looking for a person to sit in the Oval Office as transformational as FDR himself. I think we might just have ourselves someone that would sit well with "Gramma Mary."
I remember well coming home one day with a new word I had learned on the playground: "Nigger". She popped me so fast in my chops that I could have missed her whole lesson had she not explained so well why it was so wrong to divide people that had the same interests ...even though those common interests might seem to defy explaination in then apartheid America.
She was Irish. To this day, you can find older Chicagoans that refer to African-Americans as "toasted Irishmen." The term harkens back to the days when even slaves were held in higher regard than the Irish. At one time, in Memphis, for example, black slaves were allowed to toss bales of cotton down from the bluffs over the Mississppi to barges below ...but not to catch them. Catching bales was considered too dangerous for owned slaves. The Irish were used for that. She knew how things were. She made sure that I knew it, too.
On Tuesday, we are liable to see a transformational figure elected to the presidency of the U.S. comparable to no one since FDR ...but only if we all vote for him.
We white Democrats are famous for nominating black candidates ...but in the words of my blog father, the late Steve Gilliard, "we always seem to forget to vote for the black guy" once behind the curtain.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this time we'll do it; we white Americans will actually vote "for the black guy." My good friend here in Buenos Aires, Matthew, from Washington DC, recounted to me last night a story from recent phonebanking in which white voters were heard to say, "we're voting for the nigger!"
Gramma Mary would no doubt be displeased with the term ...but the result would please her to no end ...if I can be allowed to channel her committment to the cause.
Come Inauguration Day, Barack Obama has the potential to change ...obviously to change white Americans perceptions of our country ...but also to change black Americans perceptions of white people that will actually go behind the curtain and pull the lever for a black man to be our President.
I don't want Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton nor Bobby Rush to be pushed into lesser positions; we need them as much as ever.
But I would like to celebrate Obama's election as much as for the good he might do us ...as for the change in the perception between white and black Democrats and Americans.
From Buenos Aires,
Yanqui Mike
