Celebrating Obama

After eight years of a "Decider" who's managed to simultaneously lower the expectations of the presidency while expanding its prerogative to violate the "rule of law" (ingenious really!), and more importantly----the sanctity of the English language itself,* Bush the Younger couldn't have been wished out of office any sooner if he'd congratulated Obama by abdicating his debased throne on the spot.

Personally, there's a lot here to celebrate, especially considering the amount of feigned impartiality I had to exhibit with every, single, student I have (They'd look at me like, "Come on, it's Obama, right?" Torture!). But in understanding my own reaction to that fantastic night, I feel conflicted.

Fifty-one percent (a slight majority) of the reason I found my maudlin self tearing up during Obama's victory speech had more to do with the cathartic purging of a mixed sense of collective embarrassment, shame, and guilt (though I voted against W twice), than a beneficent solidarity with African-Americans on this momentous occasion of electing a veritable product of the Civil Rights movements' (yeah, plural) hard-fought (and continuing) struggle. Indeed, the new President is perfectly fluent in his only language, and won't speak to the nation as if he were reading My Pet Goat aloud to a room full of impressionable children. But maybe it was watching enlightened, and racially-sensitive "analyst"/commentators like Pat Buchanan**preface ad nauseum everything they said with, "Senator Obama's victory is truly a landmark event, but...," that threw a bit of color into my perspective lenses and tipped the scales of my emotional register.

Maybe, like the chimerical temptation to cleanse ourselves of Bush's sins (verbal, legal, ethical), there is something vainly self-congratulatory in white Americans, and especially the So-Called-(Though-Not-So)-Liberal-Media, overly pronouncing just how truly special an occasion the election of Barack Obama is: a moment where many older whites, my parents included, shed tears. Everywhere we heard, and still do, the implicit refrain, "All right, no prolonged contrition necessary, the long dark period has ended, we're gonna turn the page, and give ourselves a lot of credit for acknowledging the obvious and inevitable." (In Bush's case, the 22nd Amendment; in Obama's: that a charismatic, intelligent, and meritorious person, who happens to be black, would one day achieve the highest office). Like Bush leaving said office, it is better late than never, though let's not blow too much smoke up our collective asses just yet, I guess...though I'm not entirely sure...

So here's Alice Walker, who is the most eloquent on this salient moment in our history. Her open letter to the President Elect:

Nov. 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,

Alice Walker

Little did I know that not a week later, I would discover that I shouldn't have voted for Obama. Yes, according to the politically astute Rush Limbaugh and Co., the Prez Elect has caused----and is causing----the economic recession we're experiencing this very minute. My fiance, with "executive experience" running an international school abroad and an M.A. to boot, who's now relegated to working at a grocery store for near minimum wage, might also want to re-think her vote too, I guess. But where does such audacious and trenchant analysis come from, and who would believe it? I believe Chris Hedges has an article that convincingly articulates the wider phenomenon that really explains the kinds of people who would swallow this kind of stinky excrement (You don't have to teach Language Arts and deal with it daily to see his point).

Finally...During last week's excitement, a friend and former colleague of mine succinctly summed it all up after refuting, point by point, the basic G.O.P. party-line as argued by a tragically mis/under-informed friend:

As a citizen of this great country I am happy to see in the White House:

1) An intelligent and reasonable man.
2) A great speaker who can inspire us.
3) A man who is not afraid to lead.
4) A man that surrounds himself with capable people.
5) A man that is not so afraid of the other side that he won't even listen to them.
6) A man that understands the gravity of the situation we are currently in.
7) A man that makes energy policy his first priority.
8) A man that believes in each and every one of us.
9) A man that understands how important education is to our future.
10) A man that respects the Constitution of then United States of America.

I feel that George W. Bush lacked every single one of these qualities. That is why he is a failure as a President, and that is why we find ourselves in this crisis.

I feel that Barack Obama possesses each and every one of these qualities. That is why I voted for him. That is why I support him as President.

Apparently the majority of Americans out there agree with me and thank God for it.

Amen.

*Note: The abuse of language from this administration in particular is so severe that (re-)reading Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" in order to take a proper measurement of it is advised:

All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer...if a thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought...one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language...Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Let's make sure we limit the recycling of this particularly noxious kind of wind.

**Note Dva: One of my favorites from the many classic Buchananisms on race, a relatively recent article of his, "Obama's Cure: Same Old Con":

Barack's prognosis and Barack's cure [to heal racism and discrimination]...is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, "everybody but the rioters themselves"...

Also:

America has been the best country on Earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation [thank god, to die a savage would be unconscionable], and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known...

Please continue Pat:

...no people anywhere have done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the black community into the mainstream.

And the clincher:

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude? Barack talks about new "ladders of opportunity" for blacks. Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for "deserving" white kids.