For the longest while, U.S. nationals carried the torch for “most admired tourists”, wherever they went in the world, and that credit must be given to US production of motion pictures and music.
Before most of the other world citizens ever met an American, they had already seen an American film or heard an American song, the two elements which bred the first waves of published foreign accents in entertainment. And by the time a national from the USA, was actually met, despite he or she being a regular Ol’ Joe, they would receive admiration as if they were actual stars.
Their accents worked like a key to any city which they visited, outside of the USA, and why not, after all, they sound just like the people on the silver screen, which were somehow deemed special and intelligent and equaled to being rich and famous.
As shown in films, apparently, the USA did everything big; big houses, big streets, big cars, big businesses and its citizens were above anything small or mediocre.
The Americans knowing this fact, abused every opportunity to showcase their accents, while outside of the US, and talked unnecessarily, just to be heard. And for a while it was profitable to them, but as time and economies changed, creating cheaper flights and an expansion in global travels, that chattering eventually took on a spotlight of being the noise of loud, obnoxious, over-actors showing off, which have caused the flame of their long-carried torch to reduce down to a flicker.
Following the lead of the USA, many other countries made image development a priority, and by the late 1990s, many countries were looking just like the USA and some, even better.
The USA, who still held its power of admiration, began to fall from grace at the beginning of the 21st century, when it was on the verge of going to war with itself; US citizens roared in resentment of its leader and the declination of the US economy, threats flared, and for the first time, the rest of the world watched the USA, in mode of a daytime TV drama, pointing fingers at each other as its apparent United States began to show cracks.
Like in any family feud, a pleasant distraction will cause its members to instantaneously forget that moments before they were enemies about to cut each other’s throats; that is known as psychology of human behavior.
Barack Obama was that curve-ball, the water on the fire, the gold ring in the cracker jack box, the almighty pleasant distraction; it was indisputably genius.
A black man appeared in the race to the US Presidential Office made feuding Americans confused, perplexed their mindsets and calmed their violent spirits as Hope reigned over them with her promising power of change.
Obama’s mere presence in the race to the White House was change; it was historic, enough to silence noises of war and to dilute rages over the US shriveling economy.
And the more momentum gained by Barack Obama, the more forgetful Americans became of their economic ruins; Hope was on the rise and a black man was looking more and more likely to become US President.
Hope prevailed and Barack Hussein Obama eventually became the 44th President of the United States of America, a guarantor for cooling tempers of the American people.
Barack Obama was a sign of hope; maybe a good sign for US Citizens and black countries around the world, but for ambitious, black expats, who were living in other countries of racially mixed population, the treatment they received simply said “Barack Obama Is A Bad Example”.
The countries, who upgraded their images by following the US lead, were simply behaving as it is expected for humans to behave when an achieved greatness is witnessed; we either envy or become motivated.
And for many Blacks, Barack Obama’s presidential status, was the greatest motivation.
Globally, Blacks knew that as much as Whites did, and although I don’t much about his presidency in the USA and its effects on Black Americans, I do know that elsewhere, doors of opportunities for Blacks in white countries began to shut tighter than they were before because the last thing some of these places want to see, is another Barack Obama born out of motivation.
© Ian T. Sebàs 2016
Bleeding Pen 