Barack's Iowa Win
For a while I've been wanting to put into words the phenomenon of Barack Obama, adding to the endless reams that have been said. But in short--despite admiring many characteristics and aspects of the other candidates--I can't help but feel: he's my guy. For me, he's the guy next door, someone I could have known in my childhood in Parkway Village, which I've written about elsewhere. He's the mixed up, mixed race kid with a complicated African-Hawaiian boyhood, touched by the sixties, but emerging into adulthood with a far different political vista. Someone who took his confusing and complicated background and forged a public identity that is no less complex and nuanced.
For the first time that I've voted as an adult, I don't feel marginal. I actually feel that something--and someone--who resembles me and my outlook is actually center stage. That alone is thrilling.
And then there was the moment where I watched his speech in Iowa. It was pure Martin Luther King, pure preacher, with an easy sense of grace. I realized it was also simply thrilling to have a black man so comfortable with himself, so at ease, to ascend to this historic place. And in a funny way, I almost feel as if America needs him. That, in many ways we need black America--we need it culturally, we need it to forgive us for what our country has wrought in the past, and we need that great tradition of healing and aspiration, that timbre of overcoming that has helped us see what our vision of American truly can be. He is taking us over to the mount that many of us have been trying to climb our whole lives. And for the first time, I felt the rest might follow. That, too was a new thrill.
It doesn't mean I don't have practical questions about his candidacy. I accept that he's something of a gamble. That not all of his platform is worked out. That I worry about some of his musings on foreign policy. That vague platitudes to working it all out can lead to mushy compromise. But he's smart and he's got smart people around him. It's his moment.
And selfishly enough, it's my moment, too.
For the first time that I've voted as an adult, I don't feel marginal. I actually feel that something--and someone--who resembles me and my outlook is actually center stage. That alone is thrilling.
And then there was the moment where I watched his speech in Iowa. It was pure Martin Luther King, pure preacher, with an easy sense of grace. I realized it was also simply thrilling to have a black man so comfortable with himself, so at ease, to ascend to this historic place. And in a funny way, I almost feel as if America needs him. That, in many ways we need black America--we need it culturally, we need it to forgive us for what our country has wrought in the past, and we need that great tradition of healing and aspiration, that timbre of overcoming that has helped us see what our vision of American truly can be. He is taking us over to the mount that many of us have been trying to climb our whole lives. And for the first time, I felt the rest might follow. That, too was a new thrill.
It doesn't mean I don't have practical questions about his candidacy. I accept that he's something of a gamble. That not all of his platform is worked out. That I worry about some of his musings on foreign policy. That vague platitudes to working it all out can lead to mushy compromise. But he's smart and he's got smart people around him. It's his moment.
And selfishly enough, it's my moment, too.
posted by marina at 10:49 AM
1 Comments:
I made the mistake to think that folks who read the New York Times and perhaps lived in the coasts and have higher median iq's actually represented the voting public.
Mauro from Parkway Village
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