While "Change" is the refrain by which Obama will make history this November, I'd like to show you some of the small ways candidacy has already altered hearts and minds-- at the very least, mine.
I live in Wisconsin.
This is a state where, when ever a new police commissioner is hired in Milwaukee, young black men find themselves pulled over for a scratch on the tail-light or doing an mph over the posted speed limit; this is a state which regularly has ridiculously high disproportion in black incarceration rates- and has had the highest in the nation, several times. Why, 3 years ago, Wisconsin had the honor of being, according the Black Commentator, the Worse Place to be Black In America.
This reality might make it easier for you Kossacks to read and accept stories like this, which I've tried to tell and have been meet with some unfortunate resistance. Young blacks in this state have very little reason to be optimistic, about an Obama presidency or much else.
But things will change, little by little.
I met an older black woman who sought to give me some advice on my future internship. When I mentioned I did not want to work for Obama, as I felt dealing with a congressional or state reprensative campaign would benefit me more, she automatically shifted to mentioning the black congresspeople (what little there were), mostly in Milwaukee.
But I have no interest in working with them, either.
I understand what she thought: we're supporting our own. I, a young black person, am obviously going to support a member of the community because, in the end, we'll only have eachother-- especially in a state like Wisconsin. The racists are everywhere and will deal me blows in the smallest of ways-- better to stand on another brother's shoulders.
Older blacks are kind of like second-wave feminists. They fought the wars and spilt the blood but, when the nature of the battle changed, they never learned to change tactics. They still see demons everywhere, real and imagined, and are quick to scream, denounce and gnash teeth-- except, we are no longer in the world of the Oppressed vs. the Oppressor. Nothing is so obvious, these days-- not even overt racism.
We are now in the moment of Seduction and Education-- where, now that the overt battles have been fought, the racist laws have been destroyed and the overt hatreds stigmatized and codified, we must go forth and win hearts and minds. Just as the racists must now speak in code, we must now whisper and cajol. This is the racial Cold War, if you will. We must educate those who simply don't understand and seduce those who would come to love us as brothers. If we don't, we just keep things as "us vs. them" and no ground is ever covered, no reconciliation made possible.
This is the change that Obama represents.
See-- I'm taking a page from the Obama playbook, a playbook I think a lot of young blacks will also be glancing at. Obama didn't run for Senate and immediately go kiss the ass of the Congressional Black Caucus-- they weren't very hot for him, in the end, as he played by different, newer, rules.
He didn't immediately woo and pander to every bullet point on the national "black" wishlist-- all the stuff we're told we're supposed to want (plus some of the stuff we all really do-- health care and fair treatment and, perhaps, felon voting rights).
He went "post-racial." At the beginning of his campaign, this idea disgusted me-- what was he, running from his race? How dare he eschew his pastor (this was far, far before the so called "controversy") and for what? Being pro-black? Being "Afro-centric"?? Fucking sell-out....
But it becomes obvious to me now that this is part of the... perhaps we call it New Wave Black Power. Michelle Obama is still a black woman in every sense of the word-- everything we love in our women, is represented in Obama's wife. He was still the same man to go to that "Afro-centric" church for 20 years, still the community activist that skipped richest for South side Chicago. Post-racial does not mean non-black.
This thing that Obama does, this "post-racial" idea, it isn't loud but it's confident.
It isn't insecure; it's square-shouldered.
It wears its tie to work, it shakes hands, it meets other races and people on the same ground and demands nothing but respect-- for uniqueness and for ability.
I don't want to go and work for a black campaign just because they're black. I want to go and work with any campaign-- just to do my job and gain experience. And if they want to hold me back, I'll stare in their eye and still do a better job for it. If these people slip and call me boy, I'll remind them I'm a man, and continue doing my job-- as a man.
We'll still sit together at the lunch table or maybe go out to the same bars and more likely than not, tend towards the same churches... but I think young folk like myself will be approaching this Post-Racial idea, confident in our sense of self and community but ready to be "American" besides. Ready to show people we aren't a stereotype, we're a culture. That we compete. And we win- on ability alone.
That's how Americans earn eachother's respect. And now, as asians kept their identities but competed and the Jews kept their identity and competed, it's our time to get real respect-- square-shouldered, secure and competitent. Post-racial.
I'd like to end with another little change, one that brought a tear to my eye.
I went to church and at the very end of the sermon, this church's pastor introduced his daughter who won a trophy at a young girls beauty pageant (natural beauty-- no make-up or silly things like that); he had his daughter, who was a little shy at first, introduce herself in that practiced, poised pageant manner and her speech went a little something like this:
My name is ... I am five years old. When I grow up, I would like to be the President of the United States.
Several older folks cried out in joy while I, myself, just held a quiet smile.
It was the first time I'd heard a black child say something like that and never, not for a single moment, have a cynical thought to follow it.
That's a real change right there. A young black girl saying she could be President and not a single person in the room doubting it.