A different country

Precious Cargo, Memphis

Due to the vagaries of construction site schedules and the demands of a client, I was in the red (Memphis, Tennessee) on Black Wednesday, the day John Kerry conceded.

Since then I have been reading analysis after analyses, in an attempt to understand how or why America went for the little guy. The analyses contradict each other with aplomb; in fact it's a safe bet that Americans had many reasons for casting their votes, not all of them synchronous, many of them contradictory. It will take a four-year unfolding / unravelling of events for these same Americans to judge whether they made a wize choice.

As I have quieted my voice in shock and awe for two weeks, avoiding the siren charms of the dimensionless space that is this great blogosphere, I feel that it's time to add my own contribution to the cacaphony of commentary. I'm reaching for, but failing to grasp, the great unifying theme that can tie up the straying red, white and blue threads into some neat package of punditry that explains all to everyone, or at the very least to me, myself, I.

But this I can say. You Americans who voted for George Bush as your President sent a message to us non-Americans who cohabit with you in our shared home, the planet earth. The message is simple and clear: we don't need you, we don't want you.

We have heard and understood you.

So back to Memphis and the "Precious Cargo" restaurant at 381 North Main Street, pictured above. Having half an hour to eat before my meeting, I selected a black-owned establishment, to fill my belly with catfish and fries, and more importantly to avoid the need to pass pleasantries back and forth with the victorious good ol' boys. Fortunately, I got a lot more than that. The politically-active proprietress (alas I've forgotten her name) filled me in on the Memphis scene, talked eloquently of ongoing racial polarization, failed attempts at urban regeneration, a sapping of the African-American political will in the city since it hosted the assassination of Dr. King. This woman's will however was magnificently unsapped: the restaurant hosts acid-jazz, hip-hop and reggae concerts, poetry readings, and the night before was the venue for a victory party for a candidate for the Memphis school board: a little victory snatched from the mighty jaws of our collective defeat.