As I walked to work this morning, I got a text message from the @jjpolitics account on Twitter announcing that President Obama would release his long form birth certificate. I stopped in my tracks as my immediate thought became, "It's happening again. This White House is caving in to extremism." (I recalled how Green Jobs Czar Van Jones was dismissed, essentiall at the behest of conspiracy theorist, plagiarist and fear-monger Glenn Beck). Along with my surprise, however, I felt a deep sadness, especially once I read the coverage of the President's remarks and most especially when I saw this disgusting video of Donald Trump.
It was during my viewing of this video that I began to cry. I thought of my ancestors, both direct and collective, who had fought and died so that I might be treated as an American. I then thought of this fetid, smug, hate-filled, wealthy white man taking credit for the release and yet still not being satisfied. It does not matter how long we've been in these United States. We will never be American.
So, tears in my eyes, pain in my heart and rage in my soul, I composed this video message. More than written text, it comes close to expressing my full pain at witnessing a white man who was handed everything call the President of the United States (and me) a nigger.
I was deeply saddened to find out that photojournalist Tim Hetherington, director of the amazing documentary, Restrepo, died in Libya today. I've been especially touched because two weeks ago, I met a western photojournalist who had just returned from Libya.
I was in Tbilisi in Georgia (the country) on a delegation with fellow tech-minded New Yorkers. We were there to learn about the major reforms and challenges of this new nation and offer our take on building an entrepreneurial culture, more open media and tech environment and the relationship of Georgia to the West. Among the people we met during our whirlwind tour was a photographer named Thomas. He had spent the past several weeks in Libya with the rebels.
I had already been in some pretty awesome conversations with documentary filmmaker and now-presidential advisor Raphael Glucksmann who explained that much of what happened in Egypt's revolution was due to counseling by Serbia's non-violent revolutionaries. (BTW, they had studied King and Ghandi heavily). But, back to Thomas.
Thomas is a world-traveling chronicler of revolutions. He has been present in Serbia, Georgia, Chechnya and likely beyond. So here I had in my presence someone who was on the ground in a tumultuous part of the world where my own president had decided to intervene militarily, and I wanted to know what he thought, specifically about the rebels.
So I asked him, "What's your impression of the rebels in Libya?"
He shook his head. "Honestly?" he asked.
"Yes, I really want to know."
"Give me 50 Chechens, and this will be over in a week," he pronounced. "They fought the Russians for over a decade. They know what to do in these situations." He continued, explaining that the Libya opposition was extremely disorganized and without significant leadership, weapons and training, was unlikely to prevail.
There's no massive moral I'm trying to communicate here. But I was extremely fortunate to have this interaction on the other side of the world, and I gained even more respect for all journalists who put themselves in harms way to tell stories that need to be told.
RIP Tim, and thank you for Restrepo. To the rest of you, please check out and support the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Really. I just had lunch with the president of Georgia. At his palace. Also joining were Nora Abousteit, Hilary Mason, Saskia Bruysten, Dionne Fraser, Felix Marquardt and more as part of the Atlantic Dinners project We talked about corruption, the...
