Contempt

Wow. Unreal, isn't it? Listening to NPR's current series of stories whose subject can be summed up as "OMG we cannot freaking believe a black guy is gonna be president," it occurs to me that, in fact, we Ithacans will be ruled almost entirely by women and minorities. We have a black governor (a legally blind one, in fact, who can do a standing backflip); a female Police Chief, Mayor, and DA; and now a President who isn't merely African-American, but whose father is from actual Africa. And, lo and behold, the world is not ending. Amazing!

In any event, NPR is right that the Obama presidency is a milestone in the civil rights movement, and we should celebrate. But Obama's race isn't what makes him most interesting to me. It's his apparent lack of contempt for the country he will be leading.

For the past ten years, the right has become expert at projecting its failings onto the left, and the mantra of the past few months has been that Obama hates America, isn't a real American, isn't loyal to America. This ought to give you a hint of the way the Republican leadership regards you and me. And it isn't merely its opponents that the right despises--they hate their supporters, as well. This is why the party faithful was so horrified by Sarah Palin: she was beloved by the religious fundamentalists without whom the Republicans would never have been in power, and whom the Republicans in power loathe. You know, "the nuts," as Karl Rove used to call them. Remember the expression of pained endurance on McCain's face as the racists at his rally screamed their epithets? McCain couldn't stand those people, and his efforts to endure them took years off his life.

The biggest part of my problem over the past eight years has not been the degree to which I despised the President. It was the degree to which he despised me, and, even more maddeningly, despised his own base. Americans came not only to feel neglected: they quite rightly felt hated. And this is a real problem for a writer. When your leaders feel contempt for you, you can't write about your country as though this dynamic doesn't exist. I've spent these years trying to channel my anger and humiliation. And anger is a blunt instrument--there are only so many things you can do with it. It is artistically limiting.

The best thing about Obama is that he doesn't hate America, or Americans. He certainly doesn't hate the liberals, like me, who elected him. But he doesn't appear to hate the white racist Evangelicals who regard him as the Antichrist, either. Indeed, he doesn't seem to hate anyone. Who knows, maybe he harbors all kinds of resentments that he never expresses, neither in word nor deed. But that hardly matters. What matters is the way he behaves, and he behaves like a guy who intends to be everyone's President, not just his supporters'.

It's impossible to overstate the effect this can have on the national mood. We look to our leaders not to tell us how to act, but to tell us what the parameters of our actions are. Obama will make it OK to love your enemy. No, not "the terrorists." Each other. He truly is a uniter, not because everyone loves him, but because he appears to love everyone. Think about it. He will be the first President who really gets African-Americans. (Clinton didn't do too badly there, but still.) This will give the fearful whites among us an excuse to do the same. We may mock and deride racists, but a lot of them are racist merely out of habit, and could welcome the opportunity to put their fear behind them.

Don't get me wrong. Obama will fuck up sometimes, just like every President. And I suspect he won't be as progressive as I, and other liberals, are hoping. But it will feel good to be irritated with him without having to despise him. It will feel good to be disappointed by him without feeling as though he intends his policy mistakes as personal insults to me and everyone like me. And his successes, which I hope are many, will feel even better. And writing, maybe, won't seem like such a chore anymore.

Obama's Speech

I don't have a great deal to say about this, other than that I think it's the best political speech of my lifetime, so far. The clips I heard of the thing suggested perhaps a slightly lackluster delivery, but the text is amazing. You can read it here, on DailyKos.

...at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

Read the whole thing. He wrote it himself. I think that this is the kind of oratory that, given a sustained, impassioned chance in the marketplace of ideas, really could begin to effect some real change in the way we talk about, and think about, race.

I have been trying not to get to excited about Obama's candidacy, given the serial disappointments of the past eight years. But reading that speech, it's hard not to give in to hope. There is no bullshit in it (well--the Israel pandering is perhaps a tad extreme, but he's got to combat that madrassa nonsense somehow), and the reason, I think, is because Obama is an actual writer. A writer of books that are not total crap, and now a writer of a great speech. You get the sense, with this speech, that you have just heard a politician say exactly what he means, without compromise, for the first time in forty years.

So. Not to get all political, but...vote for a freaking writer this fall. And if you live in Pennsylvania, next month.