happy thanksgiving.

mmm...tryptophan, carbs, and alcohol.

and unless i decide not to sleep or something for the next 3 days, i've lost nanowrimo again. stupid jobs requiring actual work in the office instead of writing a novel.

also, we may have finally given up on our tv and may have to take advantage of black friday sales. ugh.

but hey. food!

paradox.

so. the next president of the united states will not be white.

the interesting thing to me is that, despite touting this as the inauguration of a "post-racial" america, we are, in fact, more obsessed with race and racial identity than ever, whether it be our own, our neighbour's, or the president-elect's mixed-racial identity. i think that's actually causing people a fair amount of consternation. just as there are those who are hailing him as "america's first black president," there are those equally determined to point out that he has a white mother. if we really were inaugurating a post-racial united states, we would be open and comfortable with a president who has a mixed-race background.

but we're not, see. historically, people with one white parent and one black parent were considered black. they were kept with the rest of the slaves. they were denied the rights their white parents enjoyed. now, more than ever, a biracial identity is impossible.

he's trying. you have to give him credit. he's widely disseminating pictures of himself with his mother and grandmother. he left race as much as possible out of his campaign. that doesn't stop people from making it the main talking point in his electoral victory (all-important questions about the presidential puppy aside).

we're trying too. we're trying to convince ourselves that we have finally arrived at a nation that judges people not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character (ahem). i mean, hell, we voted him into office right? no one can argue that progress has not been made. but i don't think it's been made as far as racial identity goes. we're still not comfortable with multi-racial identities. we're still obsessed with the identity that's been handed down by the past. we're still segregated by geography (visit any major american city), religion (visit any american church or mosque(1)), education (visit any american private university), and the culture that results from these divisions.

but if barack obama is right about one thing, he's right about hope. we can hope that we have just taken a giant step towards ignoring the colour of not just everyone else's skin, but also our own.

(1) to those of you complaining right now, i'm not going to list here synagogues since jews tend to be a race defined by their religion, or buddhist and hindu temples since actual worship at those locations still tends to be defined by the cultures that produced them. it's telling, however, that any conversation about asians in america, and to a lesser extent hispanics, is absent from this new insistence on our new, "post-racial" nation.

distractions.

so i stayed up late last night and watched the election results. i don't care where you stand politically, you have to admit that barack obama is one of the most eloquent politicians this country as produced in decades.

and i'm 2000 words behind in my novel.

d'oh.

yes! i'm planning to vote tomorrow!

now stop calling me!

i hope you are too. in the meantime, this is a fun and fascinating article. i read it on my lunch break today.

and again.

it's november. time to try to write another 50,000 words. last year i only made 13,096. first year in 4 that i failed.

wish me luck.