Yesterday, the President of the United States did an unprecedented thing: He broke into broadcast schedules and in an unscheduled press conference, showed the world the piece of paper that proves what the world already knew to be true:
He was born in America.
I was in the car, in the midst of a million and one things, when the news came to me via NPR. I heard the term “long-form” and genuinely cracked up. “Long-form” has long been an inside joke of sorts between Angry Black Lady and her blogging minions — someone acts sketchy? We demand to see their long form. Someone refuses to be reasonable? Long-form!
I listened to what the President had to say, entirely approved of his use of the phrase “side-shows and carnival barkers,” and was incensed, if unsurprised, when I heard Donald Trump later crowing about his role in the whole sordid affair (not to mention his outrageous suggestion that he would have to set his eyes on the birth certificate personally before he would be convinced).This was a typical Obama move, frankly — POTUS is very good at separating his ego from the stupid and the trivial, tossing out bones that don’t matter, in order to protect that which does.
And I knew, just like all of us knew, that none of it would change a thing for most birthers — after all, when reason closes a door, crazy opens a window. I harbored some slim hope that Obama’s reveal might make Donald Trump go away, but didn’t really believe that slim hope to be a reasonable one. And lo – I was right.
What I did not anticipate, on any level, was how the whole sad story was playing among black Americans (update: By which I mean: I didn’t anticipate that watching the most powerful black man in history being forced to show his papers would resonate on such a deeply personal, grief-inducing level for an entire community of American citizens).
