Depois da eleição de Barack Obama, que ainda desconfio ter sido em grande parte causada pela sua tez morena, como diz o Berlusconni, o Partido Republicano decidiu "copiar" a ideia e tem agora um negro a liderá-lo.

The selection on Friday of Michael Steele, 50, as the Republican National Committee's next chairman is remarkable not merely because he is the first African American to head the party of Lincoln. The former Maryland lieutenant governor's selection is an acknowledgment by the party's leadership that the GOP must quickly recast itself if it is to remain relevant to an increasingly diverse electorate no longer moved by divisive social issues.

"He understands the importance of having candidates who appeal to different constituencies without promoting a monolithic agenda," says Kellie Ferguson, executive director of Republican Majority for Choice, a Washington-based group of moderate conservatives. (A Roman Catholic, Steele personally opposes abortion.) She added, "Hopefully, he will have an open door with social moderates and conservative Republicans and bring everyone together under what will truly be a big tent." (Time)

Será possível que depois de séculos de segregação racial, os candidatos negros passem a ser os únicos possíveis?

Em Inglaterra, foram retirados à mãe viciada em heroína os seus dois filhos. Se o processo fosse conduzido "normalmente", a custódia seria entregue aos avós, mas não:

«Los hechos se han hecho públicos ahora, pero se remontan al mes de agosto pasado, cuando los trabajadores sociales de Edimburgo ordenaron a la madre que sometiera su adicción a la heroína a tratamiento y dejara a sus hijos —de cuatro y cinco años— en manos de la administración. La mujer creyó entonces que la custodia quedaría en manos de sus padres. Sin embargo, los trabajadores sociales tuvieron un criterio distinto y decidieron entregar la patria potestad de los pequeños a una pareja de homosexuales.

Al parecer, los abuelos fueron rechazados por motivos de edad —él tiene 59 años, ella 46— y por razones de salud: ella padece diabetes y él, angina de pecho» (El País, via Twitter)

Anne Wortham, professora de sociologia da Illinois State University destrona Obama:

Please know: I am black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul’s name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America.

I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the “change” that Obama asserts has come to America. Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared “progressive” whites who voted for him because he doesn’t look like them.

O texto está aqui.

(via Ordem Livre)

Não vou falar do discurso de Barack Obama, até porque não o ouvi. Não vou afirmar que Barack Obama vai ser o grande salvador do mundo neste princípio de século, ou o contrário. Vou apenas constatar um facto: apesar de Barack Obama ser a cara da mudança na América, é inevitável observar que a sua "inauguration" é o resultado do mundo que Bush enfrentou. Milhões de pessoas obrigadas a segurança apertada, a abrir malas e a deixarem-se revistar, para que nada acontecesse. Há rastos que, por mais que tentemos apagar, ficam para sempre presentes.