The other day, my Ghetto Self (28-year resident of the North LBC, government cheese eater, third-world refugee) sat down with my Educated Self (two graduate degrees, former legislative aide, now university instructor) to talk Obama, Hillary, and Shakespeare.

Ghetto Self: Thanks for making time, cuz. Glad to see your edumacation ain’t made you soft.

Educated Self: No problem. It’s been too long. So what’s on that little mind of yours?

The Democratic Primary elections.

Really? How did that happen?

I was on YouTube, high as a kite, and I saw this new rapper rock a stadium. A skinny, light-skinneded cuz in a suit and tie. Later, I found out it wadn’t no rapper. It was Barack Obama. He got mad skills. It was like Martin Luther King and Mos Def had a baby. So right then, I decided he was my candidate for Emperor of the United States.

We don’t have Emperors in this country. We have Presidents.

What’s the difference?

Point taken. Please continue.

So then, I started readin’ them serious newspapers to learn more about the election. You know, like the Press-Telegram and the Penny Save. And I foundt out Obama was up against our old President, Bill Clinton, who looked like he had stopped eatin’ that MacDonald’s and got a weave.

That’s not Bill Clinton. That’s his wife, Hillary.

My bad. Well, whoever it was, she a mean man, knowwhatahmsayin? She talkin’ all this yang bout the son of Martin and Mos, and it make me so mad I wanna get all intellectually Ike Turner on her, but I don’t know enough to debate her, so I called my lil nerd homey–you–to learn me some politics.

Ask away.

What make her think she so good and ready? What make her so qualification?

Hillary considers her time in the White House as First Lady more like being Co-President. She says that time qualifies her to be Commander in Chief.

Shiiit, she wadn’t my president. I ain’t vote for her then, I thought she was just along for the ride. That’s like sayin’ Yoko Ono can sub-in for John Lennon on some Beatles licks, ya heard?

You listen to the Beatles?

Danger Mouse, cuz. So how come he don’t just put her on blast for frontin’?

Well, this is where politics gets politically correct. He can’t because some people might think he is being sexist. By questioning her experience it’s sort of like saying her work, as the un-elected First Lady, was not up to par and doesn’t count. Plus, historical memory does not like black men attacking white women. It reminds people of the bad old days, of slave insurrection, the country’s deepest, engrained fear.

But she play the race card all the time.

Really? How so?

Every time she call him “inexperienced,” she saying this black man is not ready to be President of the United States.

That’s very perceptive of you. Where did you learn that?

Life. Ain’t everything in a book. I hear it every day. At work. On the TV. In the movies. Watching “Cops.” I can hear it in her tone. It’s the same tone they be givin’ you at the good mall: “Um, can I help you?” Yeah, you can help me–and back up off me! I got money. I ain’t gonna rob you–today.

Okay, I have time for one more question.

Yeah, I gotta get back to the P.O. soon anyway. Why she call me a “latte liberal”? I ‘on’t even know what it mean, just thought it was a new move to try on my girl.

It’s another Hillary switch-a-roo. She likes to do the okey-doke, and turn things around and twist them up. A lot of Obama supporters are inspired for change and she calls them naive. A lot of his wins are in smaller states and she calls them insignificant. She takes lobbying dollars and calls herself a fresh voice. He’s winning and she asks him to be Vice-President.

Huh?

Exactly. And while he has the biggest grassroots political movement seen in a generation–made up of unions, students, independents, yuppies, activists–she likes to belittle them by calling them “latte liberals.” It’s a pejorative.

Puh-leeese.

A cap. A bust. A yo-momma. It means Obama supporters are rich, out-of-touch, white people who sit around drinking coffee all day.

Oh no, she didn’t.

You know, I saw her speak once. Two years ago in Washington, D.C., at the Mayflower Hotel. I was there for a journalism award.

Maaaaaan, why you always flossin? Anyways, if you see her again, can you tell her something for me?

Sure.

Tell her to quit callin me a “latte liberal.” She can instigate on Obama and his big-ass ears. She can make up shit on her resume. She can even bust on people for having hope. But when she starts capping on my dranks? Neighbor, please. Them is fightin’ words.

Tell her I support Obama and I’m working class. Tell her I came from a third-world country. That my hood is surrounded by drug-dealers and gangs and there ain’t no safe parks, only one lil-ass library, and no swimming pools.

And tell that batch of cookies that in North Long Beach, we don’t drink no yuppie lattes. We’re like Shakespeare–we prefer that Olde English.

Peace.

Tags: , Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ky Phong Tran, shakespeare