November
7
'Oprah Winfrey' debuts new Will.i.am Obama video
On Friday Oprah debuted Will.i.am's new Barack Obama video, "It's a New Day."
The Grammy-winning hip-hop artist put together this post-election piece in just a few days, with a little help from his friends.
Celebs I spotted in the video on the first viewing included Will's Black Eyed Peas bandmate Fergie, Aisha Tyler, Johnathon Schaech, Harold Perrineau, Olivia Wilde, Quincy Jones, Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, Gayle King and, of course, Oprah. There are also plenty of shots from Tuesday's victory bash in Chicago. Enjoy.
My thoughts on this historic election follow after the jump.
Two years ago I didn't believe a black man could be elected as our American president; that a woman could come thisclose to being a presidential candidate here; or that gay couples would be able to marry in California.
Remarkably, two of those things have happened. Sadly, one did not.
Change happens slowly, but not always as slowly as we expect. Sometimes you have to lose a battle in order to win the war
I am encouraged by the way the passage of California's unjust Proposition 8 banning gay marriage has mobilized the gay and lesbian community here. I know that they won't stop fighting until they are afforded the same rights as all other citizens of our great nation. Hopefully they won't need to fight as long or be subjected to as much violence as the black community did in its valiant fight for civil rights.
The irony of Obama's victory is that black voters, whose nationwide turnout helped elect him, also overwhelmingly voted to pass Prop. 8 in our state. My colleague Ted Johnson has more on this argument at his Wilshire and Washington blog.
We are at the cusp of great change in this country. I am confident that Obama's term in office will be a bellwether for change for the gay community as well as all other minority groups.
If McCain had won it would have been a giant step backward for gay rights.
I, for one, am forever thankful to the black voters who made this great change possible.
But it still makes me sad that California is not as progressive as I'd hoped.
Gays and lesbians and their straight supporters, like me, must continue the fight. We have to educate people. We must continue to challenge the oppressors such as the Mormon church, which poured so much money into passing this ban. We need to find a way to take religion out of this battle so more people can understand its importance as a civil rights issue. We need to fight until this is made right. Yes we can!
(Photo of Thursday's protest at the Mormon temple in Westwood by Barbara Davidson/L.A. Times)
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"Yes we can to justice and equality!" - Barack Obama, Jan 1, 2008
Posted by: Stacy Marinos | November 09, 2008 at 11:29 AM