Dorienne's Log

My disgust for China has been mounting over the past few years, culminating to near outrage in August 2008 and has been teetering there ever since. What riles me this morning is China’s obvious mudslinging in a report drafted just two days after we (the US) published a report that stated the obvious: China’s human rights conditions have worsened. However, China feels it appropriate to claim that violent crime is so sweeping in the US that we are terrified every day that we will be murdered on our way to work.

Crime, unfortunately, is a part of civilization and humanity and I find utterly laughable that China of all places would have the gall to publish a report condemning violence in the US when China refuses to make available the same kinds of statistics. Are they honestly going to produce a report saying the US is drowning in its own violence when its own country is even larger and far, FAR more of its citizens (if we even dare call those with no voice in their government and no venue for dissent such) are living under a poverty so great that few others could stomach it? But, take this into consideration, it is not only the US who finds China’s human rights record to be lacking; the UN on whole says the same.

There is an old saying about no ailments afflicting communist nations…because they simply refuse to report them. Who says that the level of crime in China is not equivalent to that of, or even greater than that found in the US? Regardless of a few signs allowed to appear in front of the cameras here or there, China does not allow its people the right or the ability to disagree with the government and it crushes any attempts to do so time and time again. It also sees its people gathering under the name of God to be likened to some kind of treason and Christians suffer in China almost as much as they would in Muslim countries. The government refuses to allow its own people unfettered access to the world’s greatest invention, the Internet, lest its people get some “crazy ideas” about democracy and dissent and it invites other countries to see its “progress,” only to mask the true pain and suffering of its people to paint as rosy a picture as possible for itself, but we are to believe that a country, who only twenty years ago would murder its own people in the streets to keep them from outpouring any discontent, is so devoid of violence that they can condemn the US for its issues with race and violence? Someone other than me has to see this as madness!

Their claims that racism is gripping the US to the point that we are pulled to our knees was the only part of their “he said/she said” that caused me to laugh. Of course we are going to have issues with race in our country. Few others were established in the manner that we were, few others manage the demographics that we do and the few that do resemble the US in establishment and demographics suffer from the same problems. People will find any reason to discriminate each other, just look at the UK where in some places there are simply not enough “different” people around so they poke fun at redheads. Discrimination is a human plight that effects all nations. I will take this moment to drag up Yang Peiyi’s brush-off again and ask if China really thinks that their government’s open preference for “whiter” Chinese over more “yellow” or even brown Chinese is somehow different from general racism in the US.

Previously, I kept my mouth shut when China had the nerve to “instruct” the US to stabilize its economy since they were at least giving the appearance that they were doing something about the companies that had intentionally added melamine to powdered milk (although, the fact that these companies even thought they could get away with outright deception and murder is a slam for China’s improved human rights claim) and also because they were, in some sense, correct; the world economy is dependent on the strength of the United States. If we fall, everyone falls. If we suffer, everyone suffers, so it is our duty as Americans to keep the world from falling into a depression. Now, however, I am convinced China has proved itself incapable of truly becoming the world leader it wants to be and, as I am an American who can do or say what she wants because of the rights guaranteed to me (in writing!), I can see no reason to speak with the proverbial kid gloves when it comes to China. It claims that the US should “stop acting as a human rights guardian,” but enlighten us China: If not us, then who? You?

I cannot say that China has not made any improvements in the last twenty years. They have and I am sure they have experienced more progress than deterioration of their citizens’ rights, but for them to even consider asking the US to look our “human rights issues” instead when the US is, more or less, an open book in regards to history and our current social climate…well, I find that to be a bit rich.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7868303.stm

Honestly, I really am an optimist; I just hate being surprised. A part of me hopes and wishes that the Obama Presidency (Man! I just don’t like the sound of that) will turn our country down a brighter path, but less than a month into this the cup looks amazingly half-empty and I can only nod my head and sigh as I think, “I knew this was going to happen.”

As Obama is being heralded as the first “black” president for the US, the stakes are incredibly high. While no presidency (that I know of) has managed to escape drama, strife and broken promises, it normally is not seen so soon after the inauguration. Everything he does reflects on the black community as a whole; whether it a sheds positive or negative light is up to him and the people with whom he chooses to surround himself, but I’m still aggravated that his decisions, his mistakes and even his triumphs reflect on me.

Anyone who believes that racism is over in America since Obama went into office is a nut who either has been spending too much time on change.gov or has been living with their head firmly jammed into the sand for the past fifty years. I admit America has come far as a nation, but not nearly as far as we could be and would be if it were not for people holding up their racism under a guise of “tolerance” and simply “helping” the downtrodden while ensuring that they remain such through government-sponsored, antipodal efforts such as affirmative action and welfare.

I write today, not because I feel that any failure of Obama’s reflects failure upon my dark skin, but simply because we are only a fortnight into this presidency and already we can see Obama’s inexperience and basic ineptitude causing him to choose to surround himself with less than worthwhile persons. Again, at heart, I am an optimist. My hope is that all of this will blow over and America will pull itself out of its self-dug trenches, but…I also hate surprises.

Edit (9:06PM): At least he’s man enough to admit it, but Wow! Even I would not have said it like that.

*Please note: Barack Hussein Obama is half Kenyan and half white and as such does not fit my definition of Black American, but I will use the term “black President” without this bias…for the time being.

I’ll say this first just to get it out of the way and make this clear: I did not vote for Barack Obama.

…however.

Throughout my high school years, I would read my science and history textbooks and say to myself, “I hope something new happens when I am alive.” or “I wonder what will make the history books in my lifetime.” Looking back, I cannot really remember on what I used to ponder when I answered these non-questions, but I know I can say, I never, in a million, billion years, would have thought I would live to see a black…er, um…mostly black president of the United States. I think I can remember saying in the not too distant past that the only way America would have a *black President is if he, emphasis on he, was a conservative to really help those who would only vote on race find themselves in a quandary, and yet…here we are.

Although am I still incredibly skeptical of his abilities and what he will actually accomplish in his time in the White House, I saw this image on my computer and almost burst into tears:

Wow...

To think that I…me…I would see a black president in the United States Oval Office at the age of 24 and not at 86 telling my grandchildren about the number of times “we came close,” but never saw it. It is quite easy to get caught up in the absolute glee that…I won’t say bombards because that word just doesn’t feel right at this time, but you get the idea… me right and left and I feel oddly conflicted by it. I’m “happy” it happened, but disgusted (once again) that my choice for a leadership position in my country has not been chosen. I voted for McCain/Palin, but there is something that is simply exciting at having a dark-skinned president and a First Lady who looks like me (except for those crazy, weird eyes of hers…).

At some point in the afternoon, I just said to myself, “You know, I don’t even care because we’re screwed either way.” but while I tossed and turned in my bed last night, I prayed for one thing and one thing only: “Jesus, please let America make the right choice.” Not put a Republican in the White House. Not put a black person in the White House. Simply that we, as Americans, make the right choice.

I still think the fact that we had our first female VP on the ballot will go utterly unnoticed, but I still think Sarah Palin is great and I’m glad she was cleared on those bogus charges. I still think that Hillary would have made a better candidate and, the more I think about it, I think the fact that she was not the Dem’s choice made me a little bitter, driving me from “moderately conservative” to “full-blown conservative.” I still think I did the right thing by voting for the person I thought would make the best president and not voting because of race. But, I will save all of that for another night.

I’ll save the rantings about the Dems cheating in key states, about how he could possibly represent the worst instance of affirmative action the nation has ever witnessed or about the fact that I’ll be singing the “Blue State Blues” for the next four years for another post. Tonight is just for…wow.

I’m not even quite sure how I found her blog either. I suppose I could search a bit and…remember that I’ve been branching out from the BBC recently just to see what the “others” have been printing in their news. I can’t say why, but I just can’t trust US-based newspapers anymore. Not to say that the BBC can be trusted either, far from it, but getting that independent view of the country far outweighs the leftist subtleties in American papers. Anyway…

So, I’ve found Michelle Malkin‘s blog and have had to literally (and I don’t actually mean ‘figuratively’ and am just using ‘literally’ because I’m ignorant either) pull myself away from the computer to keep from spending the entire night reading posts and desiring for the ability to comment. I love what is said in most conservative blogs. I think it is just a breath of fresh air after being bombarded with liberal sentiments at nearly every turn I make just because people see my skin colour and know I think the way they do, but I always approach anything wholly conservative with raised eyebrow and heavy skepticism.

Unfortunately, when it comes to conservatives, the radical racists love to associate as well and ruin just about everything they touch. It reminds of a Facebook group in the Ohio State network that was up a year or so ago where a bunch of kids started a “white kids” group and it, of course, was ruined by a bunch of bigots posting crap about Oprah and white power and blah, blah, blah. On face value, it was no different (well, it actually it was, but I’m trying to get to my point sooner rather than later) than the “OSU Black People” or the “I should’ve gone to a blacker college” groups of which I am members on Facebook. The only problem is that bigots latch onto anything that sounds conservative or geared towards whites and destroy it. With this in mind, I delved into Malkin’s articles assuming she looked something like Suze Orman, but could make a lot of sense to young, conservative black woman in a way that intelligent conservatives tend to do.

Right when I completely fell for her lack of any sense of political correctness, I started clicking around on the site and saw that she was of Filipino descent. Now, I’m almost ashamed to admit that the fact that she wasn’t just “another” white Conservative I agreed with and would look like I can’t relate to my race for finding her articles worthwhile was what caused me to not just Bookmark her, but also RSS her site, yet…when I really think about the person I am and the people I find “heroic” or simply admire, it doesn’t seem so shameful.

There is Oprah, of course, (I don’t care how much she spends endorsing Obama, she’s still a Republican since few billionaires aren’t and even if she somehow isn’t – on paper – I learned through some people that you can’t put faith in any icon or hero except for Jesus, but that’s a post in its own right.) who I admire simply because of who she is and also the fact that she is black, being who she is, and I know there’s no chance I’ll ever put Dr. Rice on the back burner just because she’s got a long-needed rest coming, so there’s no denying that I feel an immediate affinity for successful black women because they embody what I’d like to become and, though Malkin’s not black (if she were, I’d be quoting her posts like other people quote Scripture) seeing that she’s not white, but still thinks in somewhere near the same lines as me, another non-white conservative, just makes me like her all the more. There is something so comforting in seeing a conservative being a conservative simply because she can, regardless of race…

I love being a conservative just how I like busting liberals who think that because I’m an American who is black, I automatically have to fit their racist liberal mindset of me and I love “discovering” the fact that I’m not the only person in the world who thinks the way I do.

To quote her from a little something I found through Wikipedia:

I’m not Asian, I’m American, for goodness’ sake.

…and, to phrase it in the urban vernacular to which people who share my skin colour associate: You go, girl!

God, I’m so frustrated.

That’s it. I’m completely and utterly frustrated with life.

Hillary Clinton lost another state. Just so frustrating. I’m not even a Democrat and it still pisses me off. Why can’t people just be honest with themselves? Barack Obama IS only winning because he’s black. That’s it! If you compared him against a white senator whose full of “ideas” and only been in the senate for all of two seconds and then take away race, there no difference. People say he’s charismatic. Who the hell cares? Hilter was charismatic. How the heck do you think he managed to nearly take over the world? Charisma has nothing to do with leading the country in right direction. And, I think I’m just truly insulted by the fact that this is affirmative action at it’s absolute worst. I can’t even stand it. There is nothing about him that would make a good president. No one, and I mean no one, can explain to me how he’s going to beat McCain. Good God! If Hillary won, I would vote Democrat for the first time in 3 years, and I’ve only been able to legally vote for five!

Honestly, this country is just not ready for a black president. If Jena 6 can be manage to be national news, this country’s not ready for a black president. If the state of Ohio can vote Republicans into every other office except for the governor’s chair for whom the Republican candidate coincidently happens to be black, this country’s not ready for a black president. What is wrong with America? Why can’t we see past the flash in the pan charisma and quit getting caught up in the moment? The only way this country is ever going to see a black president is if he (and I say he because I will never see a black woman as president of the US in my lifetime) is a Republican. A black Republican will win the conservative vote and will win the proverbial “black vote” at the same. We’ll see how many of these “time for change” people will back the first considerable black Republican taking a shot at the candidacy.

Grrr! I’m getting to the point that every time I hear the name Barack Obama I want to throw something high into the air and shoot it into oblivion. I just can’t stand it.

I’ll just start listing everything else I hate about the world right now:
Gas is 3.45 a gallon. That’s right. I can feed two people off Wendy’s dollar menu for the same cost as a gallon of gas.

Working sucks. I’m just not cut out for this 40-hour week thing. In fact, I don’t think I’m cut out for any job, but I can fake it real well; that is, when I’m not actually crying over the fact that I can’t be perfect in a job I hate.

Hypocrisy is alive and well. *coughSpitzercough*

My weight is never going to be normal. I’m just going to get fatter and fatter until I’m one of those people who has to have a wall torn out off my house just so that eight people and a tractor to carry me to the fork lift so that I can attempt a risky quadruple bypass surgery.

The environment is in the tubes. Apparently, in fifty years, we’re all going to be dead from either some super virus that mutated from something that escaped from a lab, or we’ll all bake to death from global warming. Though, I suppose I could add freeze to death as well because if having two feet of snow follow three days of near 70-degree weather in March is not a sign of climate change, I don’t know what is.

School sucks, too. I just turned in the single worst thing I’ve ever written as a final. I deserve to get a C in a class where I couldn’t pull together two coherent thoughts for long enough to even come up with some crap that resembles a thesis statement.

I lack the desire to update any creative writing. Nothing poetic, nothing short. Just nothing. I know I have the desire to write or I would’ve abandoned this post after my “Grrr!” about Obama, but I don’t want to update anything to create anything new. All these ideas have just piled on top of me to the point that I’m all worn out and now, I don’t want to do anything, but go to bed.

In case it wasn’t already obvious, I’m losing touch with my faith. I think that’s probably just about the most depressing thing out of all of this. A part of me knows that this is just the ADD in me feeling ready to move onto greener pastures, but will Jesus ever forgive me if stray away for a bit…even if I promise to come back later?

Sigh…

This kind of depression and frustration is not supposed to hit until the end of the month. Well, hurray for surprises and multiple disappointments.