one more

So everyone’s running around hootin’ and hollerin’ today (literally, I am hearing little yelps, squeals and bursts of unhinged laughter bouncing and echoing off/around the office walls) and I feel a mite giddy myself.  One thing is holding me back from discussing the results of last night’s election in the U.S. of A. in mixed company however, and when I say mixed, I mean politically mixed, not solely ethinically.  What could it be, you might ask? 

I live in the South.  Just because I live in a fairly large city doesn’t really mean much.  I work with people who came of age before the Civil Rights Movement and I don’t believe for one single solitary second (although I’d like to, truly I would) that 100% of the people I meet every day do not harbor some sort of issue with ethnicities.  Plus I’m paranoid so all I can think I hear when I come into a room is

uppity niggers, now they think they can go anywhere and do anything.  they’ll get knocked back into their place one day and when it happens it won’t be a moment too soon.

I live in a red state, proven once again by the electoral maps.  But I ain’t hatin’, just keep steppin’, no more drama and dammit, our president elect exemplifies the fact that we are here to save ourselves.  He couldn’t have picked a worse time to be president; the only lucky break he caught is that the collapse happened before he was elected, now he’s got to cop the clean-up.  Here we go, y’all.

Edited to add the following:

I just this moment had a conversation with someone else at my firm who’s non-client facing about the election results.  He’s black and gay.  He asked me if anyone had come up to me and talked about the election and I told him not exactly.  Basically everyone’s afraid of annoying people in power who probably DIDN’T vote for Obama.  Excuse me.  President-elect Obama.  For example, I told him, I went to a professional association luncheon event today at a swanky locale where the lawyers and senators hang out downtown.  I met up with a colleague from another firm in the building that I hooked up with when I first touched down here and three of her co-workers came with: 2 middle-aged white women, one young-ish Indian woman (who I already knew had worked the polls for Obama) and 2 black women.  My friend pulls me back and we discuss things quietly.  I do it because you basically don’t discuss politics in a mixed crowd of professionals, know your audience.  You never know when you’re going to put your foot in your mouth and then come face to face with someone in an interview later who remembers.  I wasn’t going to say anything to my colleague until I was certain, didn’t matter the color.  She did the quiet whispering thing because she works for a conservative firm that donated heavily to McCain.  

So it’s been like that all day.  Furtive whispers.  Random yips, hollers and yelps echoing through the hallway.  But no real overt celebration.  My co-worker who asked the question was even whispering when he asked me the question.  I told him that if we did a scientific survey, I’d wager that the number of support/administrative effluvia folks who voted for Obama would far outpace the number of those partner/shareholder/associate type folks who did the same.  In other words, the peons who would like tax breaks most likely voted for Obama.  The holders of any kind of wealth, mmm, I’m guessing not so much.  I’m just sayin’.

Ain’t that America.

~ by missterioso on November 5, 2008.