It's Akilah, Obviously!

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January 24, 2013

Akilah  - Guest Writer

America has made a huge leap towards realizing equality by giving women the option of fighting on the front lines of our military. While many rational people can see why this might be just fine, here’s what you can expect from those who hate everything progressive or different from 1899:

This is Obama’s Fault!: Stop expecting a follow up to this comment. It is never followed up and is applicable to anything from Fiscal Cliffs to losing a parking space.

Imagine It’s Your Wife/Daughter/Cousin/Girlfriend: Yeah, it’s pretty difficult to imagine—almost as hard to imagine as if it were your Husband/Son/Cousin/Boyfriend! But seriously, watch an episode of Army Wives and then get back to me. Last time I checked, war was unfortunate no matter who was fighting it.

We’re gonna lose all the wars!: Women are tiny! They’re almost smaller than children! Why would you ever punish such delicate creatures by giving them the option to fight?! They can’t win! That’s right, regardless of their own physical abilities, or the fact that Hillary was a very successful Secretary of State, apparently letting women participate in combat means those high powered video game assault weapons are being replaced with Nerf™ guns. Gotta read that fine print better…

Women be emotional be!!!: Women don’t have the discerning capabilities that men do—especially during that time of the month!! What if she runs out of Motrin™? She’s likely to go full Rambo and just kill everybody that stands between her and a chocolate bar or the latest episode ofScandal!

Economy!!: At this point, the lift on the female combat ban will cause opponents to lose their ability to finish sentences. You can assume this means that this new legislation will cost more money—But employing people helps the economy…right? So I’m not sure where they’re going with this, but you’ll hear it.

Make Me a Sandwich LOL!11!!!1: You stumbled onto Reddit and 4Chan again, didn’t you?

If you hear any, feel free to comment with additional mouth-breathing retorts below!

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Akilah is a 23-year old hot mess studying improv at UCB. She’s sometimes a Barack Obama Tribute Band and other times a blogger at Its Akilah, Obviously , vlogger at Smoothiefreak , and @kiwirabbitfru on Twitter!

Hey guys! I contribute to PoliSubs now! Go follow their blog!

Hi, I’m Black. What’s up? Cool….

We’ve all seen a million blog posts and articles arguing that because Barack Obama is darker than a paper bag, Black people just cannot hold back their votey-lust for him. I’m not entirely sure why it’s okay to not only assume, but also defend that Black people are so ignorant about issues and so blindly loyal to a President with such a solid economic, diplomatic, and social issues track record—but that’s old news. Didn’t we cover this in 2008? I wanna talk about White people.

For the record, I mean White people as a whole. I could acknowledge that White people are individuals too and that they perhaps vote on issues that matter to them or for other …I could not care less about your individual White feelings in this context, because this is how you report on things in 2012… Just let me wax poetic about your entire race and why they vote the way they do. It goes a little something like this:

A brief overview of American History will tell you that we have had 43 White US Presidents. It will also tell you that we’ve only had 44 US Presidents. Under the premise that people simply vote based on race, I guess that means White people have a predilection for voting for other White people. Perhaps, then, the 11% of voters that are African American only really impacted the 2008 election because Barack Obama is actually half-white, thus getting 50% of the White Vote as well (this is just science based on nothing—like most blog posts about politics).

Or maybe, there is a secret bi-racial voting demographic that only voted for the first time in 2008, too.

Did you know that not one single Black person ever voted before the year 2008 (shhhh….who needs facts?). After all, you can’t vote for a Black person if no major political parties have a Black nominee. In a non-satirical article, this might be the part where you delve into the reason why there haven’t been any Black presidential nominees for a major party going into a November election prior to Barack Obama, and what greater meaning that voting for him might symbolize to the world as a whole…

Regardless, Mitt Romney may be the whitest presidential nominee we’ve ever seen. I literally saw a picture of him eating a mayonnaise sandwich just yesterday.* I can understand why that might wake up some of those White voters that remembered Obama’s White mama just 4 years ago. Maybe, they will switch their vote back to what is oh-so normal for people of different races. 

I think the bottom line is that people can pretty much vote for whatever reason they want. I think it’s much easier (albeit much more lamentable) to make assumptions about people who vote differently than you, who also look differently than you. Perhaps instead of wasting anymore time throwing race into every election with someone who hasn’t had a sunburn, perhaps it’s time to grow up and talk about the issues that really matter.

*It may have just been a guy that looked like Mitt Romney eating a mayonnaise sandwich. 

(Source: itsakilahobviously.com)

Gay Marriage. Legitimate Rape. National Debt. Jobs. Abortion. The impending 2012 election between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

These were all topics up for debate at  Buzzfeed and Comedy Central’s “The Unconvention” on Sunday September 9 at the 92Y in Tribeca.

The evening was hosted by the likeable and knowledgeable editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, Ben Smith. It was encouraging that the emcee actually had legitimate follow-up questions for tough partisan problems rather than canned responses to the open dialogue.

The first panel was moderated by Toure and featured top political news correspondents.  Being that the event was held in lower Manhattan, it was expected that the majority of  the crowd would be politically liberal, but the panels provided a more diverse view of our political landscape and aimed to stop the Washington sound bytes and actually discuss issues as they stand.

This panel mostly discussed what it would take for Mitt Romney to win and what Obama needs to do to clench it in November. The consensus was that it all really comes down to the debates, but specifically the 1st Presidential debate this Fall for Romney.

This was followed by a “youth panel” that attempted to discuss student loan forgiveness and how inspired the youth will be this voting season. Unfortunately, I found this panel to be extremely embarrassing. As noticeably one of the youngest people in attendance, I was surprised how …high school… the panel seemed— specifically the young blond girl who was clearly nothing more than a Fox News talking point. While I respect party differences, she began barking like a dog about debt in the middle of a serious yet congenial discussion. Her main point was that we should ignore student loan debt in lieu of job creation because young people are out of work. She clearly neglected to realize that if students graduate from college and can’t get jobs, it’s really a bad call for the economy to force them to pay back money that they absolutely do not have—on an escalating scale.

You could tell that she was uneducated on the topic because the student loan forgiveness bill was probably the most unified bill between the parties during President Obama’s first term. She, however, tried to make the room as divisive as possible, and made young people look really really immature in a room full of professionals.

The second/lighter half of the evening was pure comic gold. The set opened with Political Subversities (seriously one of the best musical comedy groups in NYC) singing songs like “Obama Loves Gays,” and  ”We Need Bill Clinton.”

Michael Che brought the house down with his hilariously aloof stand-up. Most notably a joke about gay marriage and goats. I won’t spoil it, but he has made a fan out of me.

The night closed out with stand-up by The World Champion, Judah Friedlander. He really shines because he thinks on his feet. His entire show was based on asking the audience what voting issues mattered to them, and how he could solve them. Masterful.

The Unconvention was part of the much larger “Campaign for the American Conversation” series happening at the 92Y. If you’re in NYC and want a great place for (mostly) calm dialogue, check it out here!

(Source: itsakilahobviously.com)

As I’m sure you all know (since I’ve beat this dead horse to the point of it coming back as a zombie now…), I moved to New York about 6 weeks ago. One thing I had been ultimately unsure about was if I’d have to absentee vote again this year (I was in Disney World during the presidential election of 2008) or if I’d have to get a New York State ID to be able to vote here. I was clueless until Chescaleigh posted on her blog about hosting a voter’s registration event for the Andrew Goodman Foundation.

For those of you who don’t know, I am an avid YouTuber hoping to start making videos full time in the near future. Of course I adore Chescaleigh! Her videos are great, and she seems to have a level head on her shoulders. What’s more, she was hosting an event that I needed to attend, in an area of town I hadn’t yet explored (Greenwich Village is so my style), about an organization that I much admire.

The Andrew Goodman Foundation aims to help disenfranchised groups register to vote, and to educate them on policies and procedures that may hinder their ability to vote on election day. Andrew Goodman himself was fighting for that cause in the 60s when he was kidnapped and murdered by the KKK. The event’s purpose was to not only register unregistered voters, but also to inform them about current voter laws being proposed across the US.

So I met Chescaleigh, and she was bubbly and adorable (and tall, I didn’t think she’d be tall), and she gave me super advice for starting improv courses at Upright Citizens Brigade. Maybe if I’m lucky we can work on a sketch together. Hint hint hint. (I really hope she reads the tag “chescaleigh” on here…)