Thoughts on a Wednesday night; no wisdom whatsoever in them.

Have any of you been accused of being pro-Western (and, therefore as a corollary, that you're being too high-and-mighty towards other Malay(sian)s)? If so, you and Barack Obama are leading parallel lives. Jesse Jackson has let slip (without meaning to be heard, but the microphones caught it) that he wants to "cut [Obama's] nuts off" for talking down to black people, and apparently "Black Street" agrees with J.J. (so I gather).

I've heard snippets on TV from Obama's speeches at black churches where this might appear to be the case. For example, he's lectured black men on the need to take more responsibility re: their children. He's reminded a black audience that there's nothing to be proud of in graduating from the eighth grade (i.e. the end of middle school and the start of high school) -- kids should be graduating from the eighth grade as a matter of course, he says. Et cetera.

On the subject of black men being asked to take more responsibility for their children: from what I've been able to gather, that is, from the standpoint of a Malaysian living in the United States (a view which is bound to be flawed because I'm an outsider to American culture, who will unavoidably apply my own cultural filter to everything I look at, but nevertheless, I shall endeavour to understand it to the best of my ability), black families are said to have a dynamic that's different from the "usual." Nevermind, for now, what the usual is; just take it at face value, for the sake of argument. Anyway, according to this view, they've had to live with a legacy of their families being forced to split up, due to the institution of slavery. Even though the days of slavery are long gone, among Africans it has messed up the traditional mother-father-child family model so badly that there are still vestiges of this "broken family" syndrome (for the lack of a better term) in black communities even to this day. I haven't really studied this in depth though, so don't quote me on it. But that's the gist of it.

So when Obama said what he said, he's effectively telling black people that they should try to transcend their legacy. He's telling them to take a look at themselves; to be honest with themselves; and, finally, to acknowledge the need to stop perpetuating their old patterns, and instead take action for the better (i.e. that they should start behaving like "normal" people).

Some black people are angry at him, because... I don't know why, because to me it sounds logical. Well, I can try to imagine why: If I had to guess, I'd say those people are angry because they think he's been brainwashed by "the white dominant class" into thinking that blacks are lacking in some way, and that he's holding the Dominants' way of life as the ideal to aim towards. I guess the angry people think that it's the Dominant people's fault that black people's lives are messed up to begin with. So Obama -- and the Dominants -- should just go to hell. Or something. I'm really not too sure.

I personally like mixing ideas and adjusting my values, so that I become more honest. Some people might say I'm inconstant. I suppose they'd be right. But then again, what would I gain from being constantly fixed on one path, without looking right or left? Would I be rewarded with some sort of Truth Elixir, when I reach the end of this game? After which, I would know everything there is to know, and so will never have to ask another question again for the rest of my existence? And why is the end so important? What happens to the middle bit?

By asking so many questions, am I just showing how confused I am? And so what if I were confused -- don't I deserve to know the answers to things?