DemocratDad

What an African-American President Would Mean for the Idea of America

Barack Obama's decisive win in Wisconsin makes it increasingly likely that he will be the de facto Democratic nominee, possibly as early as the end of April. If he wins either Ohio or Texas on March 4, and carries the day in Pennsylvania on April 22, then any refusal by Hillary Clinton to concede would be nothing more than a sad and squalid sideshow on the road to his nomination.

I believe that if he makes it past the primary campaign, then Obama will be the next President of the United States. The next month is the turning point.

One angle on this astonishing development that deserves more attention is the way that the actual fulfillment of this promise -- an African-American man elected to the office of President of the United States -- answers a question that has haunted this country from its beginnings.

This question goes to our deepest understanding of what it means to be an American.

While the fact of a black man in the White House could never, in itself, redeem the suffering and injustice and persistent inequities brought on by the institution of slavery, it nevertheless would mean one thing clearly: we would know, once and for all, that the idea of America is true.

This question has haunted us from the beginning: Is it true?

The generation of 1776 no doubt included many wise, generous men and women. We owe to them our form of government and the basis of our culture. But they were also, by today's standards, morally abject, flawed -- monsters.

"Tremble" as he did for his country when he reflected on the great wrong of slavery, Thomas Jefferson did not free his own slaves from bondage while he lived, or even upon his own death. 

Others among the framers, though opposed to slavery, were willing to compromise with Southern states and accord slave-owners a 3/5 increase in their representation for every human being they owned. This ugly stab to the body of the Constitution, staring out at us like an open wound when we read its words, was an admission of failure. It hypocritically acknowledged the humanity of each enslaved person while depriving him or her of the full dignity of a person (you are worth exactly 2/5 less than your "master"!); and then, to make matters even worse, it assigned this insulting valuation to the oppressor's gain.

This is not to mention the other unmentionables of that era: the genocidal campaigns against the indigenous people of the continent, the subordinate position of women both personally and politically, the barbarous treatment of criminals or other outliers to society...

But the story did not stop there of course. We congratulate ourselves on the abolitionist movement, the Emancipation Proclamation, the fight for universal suffrage, the civil rights victories of the 20th century. There has been progress, undeniable progress. Yet, for all of the gains made with each generation, we have still been haunted.

Is America more than its contemporaries would have it? Are we moving forward? 

"We didn't land on Plymouth rock, my brothers and sisters," Malcolm X famously said, "Plymouth rock landed on us!" The struggles of America's citizenry were so often not chosen; they were forced upon us. We have edged along the rockface of history, but always with tremendous risk, and tremendous resistence.

But is the idea of America true?

The election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America would answer that with a resounding "Yes."

The Presidency is different. It is an office which lies at the center of our national mythology. The White House, too, is different. We follow its holiday decorations and redesigns and the changing of its portraits with an ardor we normally would reserve for our own living rooms. It is a physical space which somehow represents the locus of our own aspirations to good citizenship and strong leadership. The very names resonate: the Oval Office, the Lincoln Bedroom.

To have an African-American take up residence at the White House, and more importantly, make decisions on our behalf as the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State, would be nothing less than a second revolution.

It would mean that the legacy of race in this country, the open wound in the body of our Republic, will have begun to heal. If this -- our secular original sin -- can be overcome, then who knows what future generations can do? The idea of America would be true.  

How strangely satisfying to know that future generations, our children's grandchildren, may see us as morally abject, flawed -- monsters!

Do Politics Matter, Really Matter, in Our Lives?

If you have been reading this blog, then you know that from the beginning I have aimed to balance the personal with the political. But in the last month, ever since my wife was diagnosed with colon cancer, the personal has overwhelmed the political for me.

The immediate concerns of our family have almost completely drowned out the stakes, the strategy, the guesswork, the appeal, of politics.

(Although I have to admit that my wife did tack an Obama sign above her hospital bed, and we did convince one of her nurses, who was wavering, to vote for him in the California primary on Feb 5! But I felt, and continue to feel, as if the ongoing campaign is taking place in a parallel universe.)

So from this new position, far removed from politics, I resume this blog with a question: Do politics matter?

I mean, really matter?

Or are contemporary politics no more than a form of entertainment -- like the Oscars? (Was it McCain who quipped once that Washington D.C. was best described as "Hollywood for ugly people"?)

My conclusion -- which surprises me, considering my state of mind these days -- is that politics do matter.

Sure, the consequential political questions of our time are surrounded by a whole lot of dross. But even with all of our other concerns, my wife and I still find ourselves talking politics at the end of the day. Last night I came out from brushing my teeth with a point about the latent racist innuendos which lie behind the "experience' argument for Hillary. My wife later reminded me of some of the implications of a "President McCain" administration in terms of the survival of the doctrine of pre-emptive war. Earlier in the day we casually agreed about the worrisome implications of the low savings rate of U.S. consumers and the national debt to China...

Okay, this may sound more like politics as therapy (not advisable, I would imagine). But the fact is that these and so many other issues continue to matter to us, for the simple reason that -- despite how silly this sounds to say -- they are part of us.

Why should our national debt to China have anything to do with me and my wife right now?

Well, what is the boundary of the self? First there are our physical bodies, mine and (of more importance right now) my wife's. But nobody would suggest that our bodies should be the outer limit of our concern.

Beyond our bodies, there is our community of close family and friends -- our "loved ones," as the wonderfully descriptive saying goes. This is quite obviously part of who we are. And as soon as I expand my idea of self to include these relationships, then I have opened the circle up to the many concerns and influences which affect these people too.

I find that any attempt to trace the boundaries of the self follows a geometric, not a linear, progression: it soon includes a world, not a single person. And we find ourselves back in the arena.

It is an obvious point, perhaps, that we are not alone, that we are connected to many overlapping communities larger than ourselves. But it takes a terrifying situation like the one I am in now to see that it is really true! Not just pleasing rhetoric -- really true!

In his Meditation XVII, John Donne famously wrote: "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." I hear that truth now.

It is true going from the personal to the political: the unexpected arrival of cancer in my 36-year-old wife is perhaps a bell which tolls for you as it does for us -- in the sense that it may affect your worldview. But it is also true going the other direction, following the political to the personal: McCain and Obama's back-and-forth over the weekend about whether they would agree to public financing in the general election is a bell which tolls for me and my family. It may affect us in ways we can never predict.

We don't need to pay attention. The beauty of it is that each of us pays attention to the bells he or she can hear. They ring for us.

And then there's always the more obvious way that politics really does matter: the only health insurance plan which I could find for my wife caps her coverage at $75,000 per year. Clinton or Obama's plans would change that by requiring health care insurers to provide for people without reference to pre-existing conditions. McCain's would not. Simple.

I Am Going to Be Honest with You

Test results showed that my wife's cancer is in some of her lymph nodes. So we are now looking at chemo and possibly radiation. I'm going to write when I can. And when I write I will be honest with you. That is all I can say for now.

Being Thankful

My wife had surgery last night for colon cancer, and it went very well. We are in the hospital room in San Francisco, where she will be for at least a week of recovery.

This experience -- the last two weeks since the diagnosis, and the long night last night -- have changed me in many ways of which I am only beginning to contemplate. But one thing is clear: I am learning how to be more thankful. Just take the last 20 hours: our wonderful surgeon, Dr. Yanek Chiu, and the seriousness of his care, the nurses and their individual personalities and accents, the patient recovering from back surgery who briefly shared a room with us last night (we never saw her face, but we spoke through the curtain), the many parking lot attendants, receptionists, hospital doormen -- I have been struck by the fullness of each life. And I am so thankful for the consideration and concern which they have shown us.

Most of all I have been amazed by our friends and our dear families who have been completely there for us, full of love and support and concern. A trial such as this makes clear that our lives not lived alone, not for an instant.

I believe that there will be some part of me, for the rest of my life, which will remember when I talk to anyone, anywhere, that they may be going through hardships of which I have no idea, and I hope I can show them the kindness and patience which they need and deserve.