Will it change with Barack Obama? I don't know, but I confess I go for him. The presidential candidate
couldn't find more of an opposite in the person of John Mc Cain, an absolute antithesis of what he represents. Why do I care, living here in Tahiti, who's going to be President or
not?
I do care, because our tiny "francophone" island is floating in an English speaking world and English cultural world. And I do care also, because there are people I love over there, in
the States.
Mc Cain, in my opinion, is not representative of America as it is today, I mean, as I got to know it when I was a foreign student there, from 1997 to 2005.
This wide country is so young in his mind, in his History, in his culture. Mc Cain can't even use a computer, living in a place where all Americans live kind of a double life, one virtual
& one real, since Internet entered their home a while ago. Unless this is wrong information, from which planet comes Mister Mc Cain?
The Republican candidate, even though he's not Georges BUSH, seems to carry on his shoulder the eight years of Republican foreign relations faux-pas, 2001 trauma and economical
crisis.
My plane landed in Wichita, Kansas, on the 17th of August 1997, at 6 something PM, when Clinton was President, and my plane took off on the 18th of September 2005, when Georgie was President, and
from the beginning to the end of my journey, there has been so much change in the country.
I remember that in 1998, the fuel gallon was 99 cents; a gallon is about 4 litres. In 2004, it reached 4 dollars. That's a lot in a country where you could buy a hamburger for 99 cents.
I believe I spent the best times of my life in the States, not simply because I could buy chocolate ice-cream at 3 am, but mostly because of the people I met. From Wichita to New
York City, I have encountered people I will never forget, and if time can eventually erase their names from my memory, their faces and what they've done and who they are, will never fade.
Marie-Thérèse, Sandy, Amy, Masano, Sonali, Fabien, Diego, David, and Steve, the bartenders of that spot where I used to play (bad) pool with my friends, the Bottleneck rock bands, Modest
mouse, Cat Power, Blonde Redhead, The Shins, Assia Djebar's voice reading texts of Camus, all of those who taught me things, about life, about literature, about others.
Yes, America is a beautiful country as I got to know it, Florida beaches are white and soft like flour, and Kansas is as flat as it can be, New York taxi drivers chose their passengers and not
the other way around. Excuse my English, sir.
So I said, "Barack is not Martin" and John Mc Cain is certainly not Georges Bush. Why did I write this, I don't know. For you to guess, I guess.
Barack Obama is "metis" (from the Greek word that means, "Wise"), he's mixed blood, White mum and Black dad. And even if people say, that it is not a racial issue, it is a
racial issue.
He is the child of two cultures, he's looking at his country, and he's also looking at other countries... yes, that's right: he's open minded; and thanks Mister Obama for leaving to
women the right to choose. He's not focusing at the belly button of America, he's watching his country move within (I like that word, "within") the world.
Proof is, that it's the first time I see a Presidential candidate travelling around the world, instead of staying at home, like the others. Isn't that change?
Black people in America are Americans above all. Their history is marked with segregation and sufferance, and they have gone a long way to pull down the barriers of prejudices. From this little
girl named Rosa Park, to this radical strong minded man called X, there has been and still are conflicts. Conflicts in the image of the Black man in the Medias, in TV shows like "Cops", among
others.
During the 8 years I've been there, not once, have I been threatened or felt threatened by Blacks: and yet I lived in Spanish Harlem, as white as a sheet as I can be, and I lived in Wichita close
to a neighbourhood where I could sometimes hear shot guns. But when you watch TV over there, and when you watch Fox News, it's just as if the bad guys were always Black men.
It is a racial issue. In America, they also say "Divided but Equal". Divided? no more, with the mixed blood man that stands up for change.
One of my favorite comedians, if not the favorite, is David Chapelle. The funniest of his stand up is the story when he's in a limo and ends up in Harlem, and there is a baby in diapers smoking a
joint at the corner of the street. David Chapelle likes to manipulate Black/ White prejudices, and there is a lot of truth in many of his jokes. He turns toward us a revealing mirror.
I won't go too far now, I didn't go far anyway. And I got to go, things to do. But I just want to finish with the culture that turns upside down your heart and guts.
- A novel: "BROTHER"
- Morrison’s corn fields.
- a movie: " Color Purple"
- a song: "Georgia"
- a dream: Martin Luther King.
Let’s end on his words that ring across the United States Nation’s walls unforgettable
touching words of a man who believed, not in a race supremacy, but in humankind. A man who loved his country, the way I- We love my native land.
et la foule...
"Pour satisfaire au goût de tous, on y a envoûté tous ces artistes... Bousquet et son fantastique sur la pirogue..." écrit la narratrice de MATAMIMI à sa
fille.
