which side is obama showing?

Point of Order: 1] This weeks OP-ED in RollingOut. 2] Shouts out to Rainywalker - got thet $50 check for my shop - love u too jones.

For some reason or another, I am becoming more convinced that the president-elect may have forgotten about us common folks. He may have forgotten about a large mass of people such as me, albeit as a Libertarian, I did not vote for him. He may have not forgotten completely, as I don’t know if he ever enjoyed the educational privilege of those like me, who attended an HCBU.

On the surface, I am not really too thrilled by his cabinet picks, nor of the selection of Elizabeth Alexander. True, she is a prize-winning poet and professor of African American studies at Yale University. I don’t know if she will be his poet laureate, but I do know she will read a poem at the inauguration of the nation’s first African American president. And of his cabinet, some are top-notch selections. I just feel that a few more folk from Main Street (not Ivy Leaguers or folks in D.C.), could have been selected. Why not? Main Street runs just as effectively, if not more effectively as K Street or Pennsylvania Avenue.

Maybe I am overreacting, maybe not. However, Obama is not giving the appearance of change as was his mantra during his campaign. No, it looks like the same old elitists who have been running this country into the ground. I am willing to give him a chance — but of the poets, Paul Beatty, Anne Pierson Wiese, Sol, or Ben Doller could have been great choices as well. He could have even looked in his own backyard; Jeffery Renard Allen, who was born in Chicago, or the founder of the oldest black press in America — Haki Mahabuti Or he could have selected Herman Beavers, Terrance Hayes, Harryette Mullen, Crystal Williams, Evie Shockley, Joshua Clover, Reginald Shepherd or myself.

These are the common poets, those not from Harvard, Yale or Georgetown. They are regular people. Wonder which side Obama is showing now, the Ivy League-educated political elitist or the pick-up game loving community leader from the South Side of Chicago?