"You should write more about what others are actually saying to you. Are people spontaneously approaching you and telling you that you should be more smiley? It seems to me you're probably voicing your lack of happiness to people and that they are responding to, rather than instigating, the conflict you describe."

I will give you examples from today. I went to the hospital for my annual neurological check up. By way of making small talk, the administrative assistant, who was white, said to me "you must be so proud." I thought she was talking about me being proud of getting an MRI and an EEG. I asked her what she meant and she said "you must be proud that Obama won." I got very angry with her and told her that his mother or father would be proud, but he is neither a relative nor a friend, so I have no reason to be proud. After that, the radiology tech, who was black, started in on how happy "we" were. By this point I knew what he was talking about. I told him that "we" are not a "we" and that he could be happy all he wanted.

Later on today, I went to visit my friend who is in renal failure and was getting his 6 hour dialysis treatment. A person in the hallway at the hospital started singing something about Obama and tried to engage me in celebration. I did not say anything. The point is that black people have been smiling at me all day and assuming that I am feeling the same way they are. Before all of this, I was not angry about Obama winning, I just felt alienated from people like myself (young people, young black people, Democrats, liberals). I would not begrudge anyone happiness, no matter how misguided or misplaced it is. I have a right not to fall over myself over him.

During the primaries, most of my friends and family questioned me about not liking Obama. Like you, many of them resorted to calling me names. I am not going to list all of the incidents. I got called names and I resorted to name calling. Because I was not in love with the notion that Obama is the savior of black people, I got into beefs with people who had the nerve to be angry with me because I do not like him.

"Second of all, I think you're reaching when you say "Obama cannot have the subjugaqtion and humilation of his family thrown in his face." What do you know about what he experienced growing up? Maybe insults to his family's lineage didn't sting in the same way they would for you, but that doesn't mean he wasn't subjected to insults, slights and maltreatment"

You made my point. Insults hurled at me sting in a very different way than insults hurled at him. Obama looks like a man of color, so I do not expect that he would be any more immune to racism than I am. There is a difference between how we would take it, and not merely on an individual level. You are giving me the impression that the differences between me and Obama in terms of lineage does not impact the way we see and experience things. What starts out as a racist remark out of someone's mouth gets processed differently. I do not really know if Obama feels the same bitterness that many black people have felt over the treatment of their families. My grandmother told me this year that she was called nigger so much that when she was very young she used to think her first name was a nickname. My grandfather, a Harvard graduate, would have a curtain drawn around him in restaurants in New York so that his presence would not offend white patrons. My mom went to a segregated school and was discouraged from pursuing higher education because she was black. Many people owe their lives to my mother's refusal to be told that she could not cut it. Shit like that makes me bitter and angry. I love my parents and grandparents. To hear that they were treated this way makes my blood boil. If you think that Obama can identify with that, we will have to agree to disagree. I am not knocking Obama for not sharing my experience or being black the same way I am. I am just making the assertion that we live blackness in different ways. That is not a personal attack on him.

You persist in asking why I feel isolated and alienated from black people as a result of Obama's victory. Upwards of 95% of black people voted for Obama. There was unprecedented excitement for him in the black community. Oprah, who always avoids getting into politics, was moved enough by Obama (whom she calls "the One"), inserted herself into the race. Black artists came out in full force like never before. People whose music I listen to, whose lives and heritage are similar to mine, whose songs are part of the soundtrack of my life, became totally foreign to me. I am not one who follows the crowd, so I was not bothered by disagreeing with almost all of blacks in America. What bothered me was that so many people heaped scorn upon me for not seeing Obama as the Second Coming. I thought it was bizarre behavior. It was not enough for me to just say "look, I am not down with him like that" and let it go. The problem was not that I was unhappy with their happiness, they were unhappy with my not being happy. After a while, I tried to avoid the subject. When people brought it up, I was not going to lie and say I liked Obama. These conversations turned into full blown fights. People actually got angry with me.