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Idol jabber

Unbridled hope turned to fear for the first time when U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the nation Tuesday.

It was only a matter of time, given the wildly unrealistic expectations foisted upon the first black American president.

I’ve always balked at the old “When you’re black, you have to be twice as good” adage. But here it is at work, in plain sight, Obama put forth as the answer to everything from ancient Middle East conflicts to the curious manner in which the U.S. crowns its college football champion.

Folks otherwise measured in their idolatry have taken as gospel Obama’s campaign refrain of “Yes we can” and somehow adulterated it into “Yes he can.”

All of a sudden hundreds of years of the U.S. being an openly racist society are gone. I’m not one of those sipping from the Obama Kool-Aid.

Devotees expect the miraculous. So I’m thinking, why not also dismantle the U.S. prison-industrial complex while he’s at it?

There’s no jabber from the Obama camp about decriminalizing pot to stem the tide of prisons being built to house third-strike, busted-with-one-joint sad sacks.

But items on the president’s wish list include (deep breath, now): ending the war in Iraq, finishing the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, empowering the disabled, as well as restoring the promise of America’s public education.

Add to that: combatting employment discrimination, expanding anti-hate crimes laws, ending racial profiling, supporting civil unions and giving paid sick days to all workers.

It ain’t that I’m not down with the Obama-hued shift in consciousness.

I don’t know. Maybe if Obama had hooked up George Clinton (with Chuck D et al.) for a command performance of Paint The White House Black (or Chocolate City) for inaugural festivities, I’d feel better.

But beyond the smiley-faced, multiracial, forward-together booster business, I’m left with the sense that whatever considerable good Obama ends up doing will be obscured by all the things he just won’t have time to get to.

sigcino@nowtoronto.com

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