Obama's speech

This may seem a bit behind schedule but I didn't want to jump on it. Felt like I needed to give it room to breathe. At any rate, Barack Obama gave one of the most important speeches on race, in recent memory. While I watched the speech (at work, yes) I kept reflecting on how I've never, in my lifetime I mean, seen a leader speak to people like that. Jon Stewart said something to the effect of, "and on a Tuesday morning in March, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination spoke to the American people like they were adults." It was the most honest, reasoned, reserved but at the same time passionate and real account of racism in America I've ever seen from a public figure, let alone a politician. He spoke with a candor that is rare (or nonexistent), not only in American political discourse, but in our culture, as well. I do not want to pick out certain passages that I thought were particularly revealing or that I "liked" because it is not something, I think, that can be taken in bits. It should be processed wholly. However, I will point to this simple introductory section:

Race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now...The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

This is a seemingly simple statement. But within it is the challenge that Obama is consistently putting in front of us. For someone in quest of the highest office in this country, and lacking the support of a particular and important contingency of voters (white males), to make this statement, not to mention the entire speech, is bold.

To be so bold as to come out and say black anger is real, white resentment is real, and call on us to move forward is something some argue is politically stupid. I say it is essential in a leader.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, of The Root, had this to say:

I think what mattered most to me is that Barack made the implicit and radical argument that black people are human. Of course, we already know that we are fully human: good, bad, hopeful, angry, brilliant, stupid, capable, pitiful, loving, hateful, all of it. But we rarely see a member of our government so beautifully articulate our humanity.

He also spoke to us all, of all races, like we were human. Like we were, as Jon Stewart said, adults. He spoke not down to us, but as if we were capable of understanding a nuanced argument about an incomprehensibly huge subject.


Marc Lamont Hill, also of the The Root and avidly a non-supporter of Obama (he's for Nader), said this:

Instead of merely assuaging white racial anxieties, Obama’s words forced the entire nation to come to terms with its demons. Although he unequivocally denounced Jeremiah Wright’s remarks, Obama refused to reduce him (or his own white grandmother) to a racist caricature. Also, through his evenhanded analysis of both structural inequality and individual responsibility, Obama raised the stakes for racial discourse in American politics.

Matt Bai, in his study of racial integration in the Democratic party for the New York Times political blog , wrote:

A lot of top Democrats have for months expressed their fears that Mr. Obama would lose handily in November if he were the nominee, and the implication in this is that he is too much the candidate of black voters. What was remarkable about Mr. Obama’s speech, though, was the way that this black son of a white mother took issue with the notion that America, outside of Washington, remains defined by its racial bias. He didn’t suggest that somehow he alone had the ability to break down old racial barriers, but rather that those barriers have already begun to tumble and that the political establishment just hasn’t caught up. Indeed, his central criticism of Mr. Wright was not that he was too outspoken or too enraged at white Americans, but that he was too rooted in the past — that he lacked “a belief that society can change.”

The same might be said of the Democratic Party itself. And this is why the success of Mr. Obama’s argument has serious implications not just for his candidacy, but also for a party that has too often feared the worst about white America. If you’re a Democrat and a pessimist about the basic nature of the American voter, you might reject what Mr. Obama is saying as just more wishful rhetoric, a call for the kind of racial unity that has never been visited upon the country. If you’re more of an idealist, though, you might see in his vision the possibility of a country less obsessed than its aging leaders with racial division—and of a party that might one day be led by those who have for so long sustained it.

Barack Obama never once suggested that he was the one who could heal our racist wounds. He puts it on us. Obama is criticized for not being specific enough in laying clear his policies of "change" (this speech was criticized in much the same way). On top of this being for the most part untrue, I find it ridiculous for another reason. He is not, and will never claim to be, a savior to pull us out of the muck. He knows change can never come from one person. So he puts it on us, the people.

I have already said this on this blog, so I'll refrain from going further, except to say this: If Barack does not get the nomination, and years from now, when this speech ("which may be dissected in grade-school classrooms and graduate seminars for many years to come," as Matt Bai writes earlier in his piece) is put into historical context, people will be dumbfounded that we denied this man the chance to be our leader.

As I said, the speech should be heard or read in its entirety. If you haven't seen, heard or read it, I urge you to.

"A More Perfect Union"

There was one feeling, on top of the countless others that came up throughout the speech, that lingered, even as I read response after response after response (which came at an alarming rate). It was, as my buddy Ron put it, Finally.

mark.