A Weight Has Been Lifted

A lot of people (including myself at one point) muttered about how Obama’s ideas are not that great. That he’s fairly conservative. That he’s not going to lead the revolution. But, I think to focus on Obama the person is short sighted. It’s really important to distinguish between Obama the man and Obama the symbol in accounting for what has people so hyped up. It’s true. He’s a moderate who would fit in nicely in Canada’s Conservative Party. His politics suck in a lot of ways. Of course, some people agree with his politics, but I don’t think that’s what has so many people excited.

What’s stunning about him is that if someone had told the slaves stolen from Africa that one day someone who looked like them could be the President of the land, they would have been floored. As I heard someone say on my mom’s show yesterday, “This isn’t just for us. This is for our ancestors who fought and died so that we could have the right to vote.” Obama’s election is stunning proof of our strength to survive and to thrive despite the most incredibly debasing history.

I have to admit that I’ve been frustrated with people (many of them white) on the left who have failed to have perspective on what this means. It means that kids who look like me are now less likely to grow up the way I did, thinking that I could do a lot of things, but some things were still just for white people. It means I can say to my kids, “You can be anything you want, even President,” and believe it.

This isn’t a mere change; this is a phase transition. A lot of the Black folks who came before me had some messed up politics. But I can’t knock them too hard because they paved the path for me. That’s who Obama is going to be for generations of Black youth (amongst others) to come. They are going to be empowered by the image, no matter what his stance on Pakistan or Guantanamo. And in countless cases, their lives are going to be saved by that image.

I heard a woman from Harlem on MSNBC who, when asked how she felt, said “I feel proud and strong and tall.” And I thought, goddamn, they are finally asking Black folks how they think and feel! And they will do it more now! And I thought, she doesn’t sound white. She sounds like Black poetry. She sounds like the Harlem of yesterday and the Harlem of tomorrow. And the words she speaks, they are for Black America, the Caribbean, Africa. Her words are the sound of people waking up and saying, “Yes we can!” And individuals saying, “Yes I will!” The collective consciousness of a people saying, “Yes we matter!”

An America lead by President Obama is an America with a waking Black community. Waking to itself again. Waking renewed. Waking ready to fight for justice. The amazing thing is that white folks who haven’t will learn to walk with us. I believe that. They’re going to get educated because they’re already becoming educated. They don’t have a choice about it anymore. They don’t have a choice but to see an Black man being intelligent and conscientious. They can’t keep him out of their community because he is their community.

It took 350 years of injustice, but Black folks are making it and will make it. That doesn’t mean we, or our leaders, are immune to the kind of bullshit that is twisted into the oppression of many, from First Nations peoples to Vietnamese sweatshop workers. As activists, we will have to keep on keepin on, just like so many generations before us.

And that’s where the power of Obama’s symbol comes in. He is proof that the struggle matters, that it works, that we’re not wasting our time, and that we should persist and INSIST on change. The US is a racist country. But now, I believe, it won’t always be so because the work that I do, that you do, that we do, matters. And it will change the world. I’m in it for the long hall because I don’t just hope: I believe.