What if Barack Obama had been accused of rape?

[Hekate]

16. Well you got here in 2007, but you never seem to know who I am, so I'll explain again...

I remember the speech Obama gave at the DNC during the BushCheney administration. 2004? It made a huge impression here at DU -- wow, we all said, this guy's an up-and-comer. I live 2 hours out from Los Angeles, and some of my activist Dem friends filled a van with people to go hear him speak at a neighborhood park somewhere in LA. 2006? It was outdoors and it was packed. We had to park blocks away. He told a story -- all politicians tell a story, but this was pretty much the story of this country as I would tell it myself, and of course I liked that.

I heard about his book and made a point of reading it. I discovered there were only a few degrees of separation between us -- His parents and I went to the same university, though they were a bit before my time. I supported the first campaign of a man who turned out to be a close friend of his mother and father when they were all students: Neil Abercrombie, who by the time I met him was a university prof running for the legislative seat in the 3-M District (Makiki, McCully, Manoa) where I lived. You may have heard his name because he ended up in the US Congress and later became Governor of Hawai'i, but no matter.

Barack Obama's autobiography went straight to my heart as a fellow kama'aina. I never in my life thought my small remote home state would produce a man who might actually end up as president. His grandparents had a very similar reaction to moving to the Islands as my parents did when they came: this is an ethnically-blended paradise. It's not really Heaven, real people with real troubles live there, but in the 1950s and 1960s it was very different in atmosphere from the Mainland.

And there was so much more that he revealed. To you, he is a black man with a white mother. Right? To me, I see how his haole mother fostered his African American identity even when they moved to Indonesia. To me, I see the choices of identity he had, and how he chose to move to the Mainland and how he chose Michelle Robinson. And -- I see the stamp of Hawai'i on him to his core.

But here at DU we had some good old battles over his identity -- I can't remember who said he didn't seem black enough, but there it was.

Be that as it may, although my first choice in 2007-8 was Hillary, I was happy to support Obama. We all want to imagine we understand our preferred candidates' character -- but it would seem so out of character to me if someone accused Obama of nonconsensual sex. As far as I can tell, the man has not had a breath of scandal on him. It would take a lot of convincing for me to lose faith in him.

I don't know what you want me to say. Perhaps you chose the wrong example to use on me and should throw out another challenge.

All things being equal, despite being #MeToo , I try to not make snap judgments when someone I really know nothing about is accused of something, and it has nothing zero zilch nada to do with the color of their skin. I don't know very damn much about Virginia except it is Southern and is allegedly turning Blue, but I sure know Nixonian ratfucking when I see it, and we just keep falling for it.