Obama party includes a naked digression

By MARIA ELENA BACA, Star Tribune
Last update: November 5, 2008 - 10:45 PM


Call it naked enthusiasm. At 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, Jason Spidle, Bobby Becker and friends were celebrating Barack Obama's victory at Spidle's place in south Minneapolis. The champagne was flowing when the two made a decision they'd regret later.

"We had finished watching Obama's acceptance speech, and we were drinking champagne and cheering, and my friend Bobby and I just randomly decided we should go streaking," Spidle said. "We invited other people, but nobody took the opportunity."

So the two men, both in their mid-20s, stripped off their clothes and ran a block to 22nd and Lyndale Avenue S. From there, they turned south and headed for 24th Street, whooping and yelling, "Obama!"

They crossed the street and gave a shout-out to patrons on the patio of Leaning Tower of Pizza. 'They cheered and hollered and gave us high-fives, and we returned home to a lot of horn-honking," Spidle said.

About 100 yards from home, they were stopped by a police officer and trundled into the back seat of his squad car while he wrote up a citation.

"He'd had 'Cops' -- the show's -- producer in his car earlier that day," Spidle said, adding that it was too bad for the show that the producer had missed them, but probably good for him and Becker.

Spidle and Becker were issued citations and sent home.

"We were still whooping it up," he said. "[The officer] gave us a horn-honk, too, I think."

Now the two have to go downtown for a court date. There will be a hearing and probably a fine. What do they have to say for themselves?

"I think Barack Obama would be pleased with our excitement," Spidle said, "but maybe not with how we decided to display our excitement."

The vast majority of Minnesota Obama supporters who poured into the streets did so fully clothed, dancing and singing in the streets, honking car horns and punctuating the night with fireworks.

Around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Somali immigrants spilled out onto Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis to began an impromptu celebration. University students and other neighborhood residents joined in. The party went on well into Wednesday.

Across the river, cheers erupted as people spilled out of the Bob Dylan concert at Northrop Auditorium. Larry Turner of St. Paul ignited the crowd with his drum beats, which echoed for blocks around campus.

A more conventional celebration was planned for Wednesday night at New Salem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, where the Rev. Jerry McAfee extended an open invitation for prayer and gospel music.

Staff writers Allie Shah, Lora Pabst and Mary Lynn Smith contributed to this report. Maria Elena Baca • 612-673-4409

What is wrong with being black?: why Obama victory is resounding victory for Blacks

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Alice Walker

Last weekend i happened to spend three quarters of my time indoors, most of that time glued on telly on GOD channel, which i must admit is not a bad place to waste off a boring weekend. A session by one evangelist going with the catch line "what is wrong with being black " caught my attention. Up to now, i am yet to find out why he used that line in the first place if he thought there was nothing wrong in being black! To put it simply, this evangelist's idea of trying to demonstrate that there is nothing wrong with being black, is itself in bad faith. It replays that intrinsic con notion that "there is something wrong with being black, but that wrong is not extensively damaging".
Thank God that Barack Obama , he the famous "that one" has disproved these theories, i thank God he is Black. And what even makes me feel that black race is a great race is the way he kept the race issue out of it. For those black Americans, who have waited forever for emancipation, the time has come, the time to realize that dream : that men will be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
Yet again, i see a more emboldened black race, and more inspired world, that this Obama campaign has wrought. As he put it, "your victory", i envisaged what hell it would have been for him to drive home his message without the confidence from the party supporters, from the Black and other regarded "minorities". The resounding message: You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go.
It was not a mediocre campaign, but a professional, elitist, well grounded and strategical, again the message: It doesn't come on a silver platter.
I salute Obama, even if i were white or yellow, i would still salute him, he has defied the odds, and made history, am proud to be part of that history - as a Kenyan.
Long live Barack Obama, Long live America, long live Africa!
--Shujaa Mkenya - KENYA.