Pooping on the party

Only for a moment. Then we can get the Obama Shuffle going strong again. Agreed?

But it was really tough to stomach the post-election coverage on CNN last night (goodness knows that I might have actually wretched if I watched FOX News). Mostly because, in a seemingly endless loop of celebration scenes, we were shown images of emotionally overwhelmed black folks.

Cameras caught a woman who stopped her car in the middle of a busy Chicago street, climbed out, cranked up the gospel music and tried to get her groove back. There were numerous shots of students at some HBCU in Atlanta (the name of the school escapes me at the moment) celebrating wildly. And, of course, there were gratuitous shots of elderly black people dabbing their eyes with tissue alongside others who all but broke out into the Tootsee Roll.

That's all good. Hell, last night after I got home from work, I hugged some stranger in the parking lot of my apartment. I've been exchanging knowing grins with dozens of brown-skinned people today. And, for a brief moment during Obama's acceptance speech, it even got a little, uh, dusty in my apartment. It was truly a wonderful moment.

But it wouldn't hurt for CNN, MSNBC and other cable networks to emphasize that Obama didn't win the presidency of Black America. He was elected president of the United States of America by a pretty sizable electoral margin, meaning his support crossed all sorts of lines - including color.

Which means, presumably there were some folks of different complexions who made a joyful noise last night. Lots of people had reason to celebrate last night - and I know a lot of them did. It's just too bad we didn't get to see much of it on the tee-vee.

(Photo from Getty Images)