9/11 was one of those events that splits history. All our perspective changes and divides: that which came before; that which followed.
As of that moment, everything is different; the world has changed in ways that feel like massive tectonic shifts beneath our feet. The impossible has become reality.
On a quite different day, under quite different circumstances, I found myself getting my balance again after a world-altering event.
November Fourth, history again split in half. The world before an Obama Presidency, and the world after.
I woke up on November Fifth with a feeling I'd never had in my life: that as of that day, I was a citizen of the United States.
As of that day, I understood what it was to feel patriotic.
There was nothing in my upbringing to instill this feeling in me prior to that day.
Granted, I should have posted this right after the election. But with all the daily worry over Obama's latest decisions, all the knee-jerk reactions over whether he's too left, or not left enough, I thought this might be a good time to share the experience of watching the world change on November Fourth. If you're tired of this stuff, there are plenty of other diaries to give your attention to; if you, too, feel as if the universe has shifted alignment, join me below.
***
I grew up in an activist family. And my youth was shaped by three critical events: the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton by the Chicago PD, while he slept with his infant son in his arms; the murder of four Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard; and the murder of two students at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, by state and local police.
None of the men who pulled the triggers on those seven victims was ever prosecuted.
To me, the US was a nation that didn't represent me and my values in any way. It was a nation that would as soon shoot me down as look at me. The American flag, unless hung upside down, was a symbol of unrepentant imperialism, false promises of equality, menacing harassment, and invasion of privacy.
I had already grown up in an atmosphere of hyper-vigilance, due to the ghost of Joe McCarthy, who'd hounded my parents, truncated their careers, and changed their lives forever with the constant need to look over their shoulders.
I learned odd lessons early: to never, under any circumstances, throw any mail -- even junk -- in a public trash can. It was to be carried upstairs and put in the household garbage. To never discuss politics on the telephone (that edict eventually wore thin, and then out altogether: in a political family, it's ridiculous to avoid political conversation anywhere); and, when I was a bit older, to warn my friends never to discuss drugs on the phone, because it was bugged. To always be aware of anyone who might follow me -- not for the usual reasons, though those were in the warning, too -- and to familiarize myself with what they looked like. I might need to be careful of them at another time, under different circumstances.
My brother was among the top echelon of S.D.S. when they took over the buildings at Columbia -- for which he was eventually arrested, charged, and imprisoned. I loved hanging out with my brother, when he'd have me. But we were never alone when we went out. There was always one of those people I'd been warned to look for: a G-man, classically dressed in trench coat, dark shoes, white socks, following us. They either weren't terribly good at it, or wanted us to be fully aware of their presence.
Years later, when the Freedom of Information Act allowed my brother to send for his records which had, presumably, been kept in copious detail by the Secret Service, I recall us lying in various postures of collapse among the dozens of cardboard file boxes he'd received, laughing helplessly at what the government that had expended such energy tracking him, bugging him, menacing him, had failed to surmise.
While he had openly, and on the books, worked at the Columbia University bookstore, they were unable to ascertain if he was employed. While our father's name was the same as ours, they were unable to figure out who he was -- even though they presumably held a file nearly as large on him.
I recall distinctly hearing about one piece of the training my sister received on her way down to Freedom Summer: if detained by the police, ask for a cigarette or a bathroom -- anything to break through the cops' collective consciousness by making them realize that their detainees were, despite the Department's expectations, human. This was yet a new insight into the alien quality of the keepers of law in the United States. That one had to work to appear human to them.
In my early teens I was approached by an S.D.S. contingent to work with the Black Panthers and the Young Lords in organizing students against the Vietnam War, and in working to help us all cope with racial tensions which, at that time, were as high as I can ever recall. I gladly took their offer, and worked with the Panthers and Young Lords to build what became a powerful and involved group of student activists.
So my history has been one of being dogged by, and working against, the United States Government at the community level, through non-violent means.
Essentially, the government was always my enemy. And even as I faded out of my activism, I closely watched all the ways in which our government failed to protect us from themselves.
***
I was an enthusiastic voter for about 15 years, even if I was generally dubious about those for whom I cast my ballots. Finally, cynicism took over. Some time after Jimmy Carter's election, I got sick and tired of voting for people whose ability to effect serious change I deeply doubted. I dropped out of the electoral system altogether. Just quit voting. (I live in a state that generally votes Democratic anyway, and so [I rationalized] it didn't make any difference.)
I had never seen a politician -- particularly a Presidential candidate -- whose motives I believed. However laudable their platform, I felt their ego was the main driving force. And ego is never to be trusted with power.
Throughout this election season (two years of it!), I watched with slightly more interest: how could I not, after the debacle of the last eight years? I immediately set my loyalties in Edwards' camp, as his platform on workers and poverty most closely echoed my own beliefs.
There was this guy people started talking about... some young guy from Chicago. I figured he was a longshot, and paid little attention. Then one day I heard him speak.
There was this tall, thin, handsome guy, wowing the crowd, speaking like FDR -- hero to my parents, who'd lived through the Depression. I was riveted. Mesmerized. I listened closely.
But what I had heard, I realized when I recovered my senses, were grand ideas that hardly seemed plausible. Sweeping change -- change we'd all longed desperately for -- that could never be effected.
Then Edwards dropped out. By then, I'd been listening regularly to Obama's speeches and the debates. Every time Obama spoke, I was completely captivated. But I worried they were words without substance. I wanted to trust this man who spoke from the same set of values I had, who used language so piercingly and beautifully, who seemed unmarred by the American political system. But never, not once (remember, this was early on), did I hear how he would accomplish what he was proposing.
So I had a dilemma: with Edwards gone, and Clinton in no way a contender for my vote, I was left with pretty talk... and an odd feeling of... what was it? Attraction? Thrall? Being subtly but brilliantly brainwashed?
The inner struggle began: This is the guy. How can he be the guy? He's got nothing but words. I know, but he's the guy. Listen to what he's talking about. It's all a pipedream: he can't actually do any of that.
But when he spoke, I listened. I stopped whatever I was doing, and listened to every word... and believed.
Finally, I got smart. Took me a while, but I finally went to his web page and looked for policy instead of promises. And there it was -- forty-five pages worth of pragmatic ideas for turning his pretty words into actual, functioning government. And in that instant, it was imperative to me that Barack Obama become our next President. I committed myself to the campaign fully, re-registered to vote, volunteered (something I'd never done -- or even vaguely considered), and began an internal battle of desire I'd never experienced before.
Close family friends, an African American couple I've known all my life and who have become my proxy parents since the death of my own, were watching the campaign season with as much intensity as I. And we shook our heads together in misery that this man, this gift of a man, could never actually win the election. It was sheer, pitiful foolishness to entertain for even a moment the idea that a black man could be President. We'd call and compare notes after every Obama press conference, interview, stump speech, and news report. We'd be flushed with political passion for what we had heard from him, but it was always tempered with an underlying despair that this event we hoped so hard for could never happen in America. Not in this half of the century, anyway.
And then he won the Primaries. And the goal seemed so excruciatingly close... and still so hopelessly impossible.
I became a blog addict. Every morning I'd open every electoral projection site (always Nate Silver first) in tabs across my browser, and click from one to the other other, comparing the day's numbers. I started a mental list of states I considered a sure thing, those I considered out of the question, and those that might go either way.
So close, so far... Even as Nate Silver brought Obama's odds of losing the election down to minute single digits, I couldn't shake the memory of the last two elections. Theft, fraud, intimidation...
He couldn't win. The boy genius Silver was wrong.
My proxy parents and I mourned together on a regular basis.
We knew -- knew -- he couldn't win. That it would be another crushing loss. After all, the system was so effectively in place -- they'd had two elections in which to perfect their evil means of stealing elections.
After sixteen hours of poll-watching on Election Day (blissfully interrupted by, for the first time in 28 years, pressing a lever and seeing the pointer come down over the name Barack Obama) the local volunteers and Democrats gathered at one of the bars here, and watched the returns. Every state called for Obama brought a roar of victory.
As the electoral numbers piled up for him, for the first time, Obama's example to us dictated our behavior: those more confident of certain victory wanted to go over to the stuffy and glum bar where the Republicans were gathered, and just... smile at them. We debated this juvenile indulgence for a bit, then someone said, "We can't do that. Barack wouldn't want it." What a striking moment. That the potential new leader of this nation had influenced our behavior. I see it more and more, but that was the first time I'd witnessed it in action.
So we all sat back down again, and returned our attention to the television. And fifteen minutes later they called Ohio for Obama... and I had to leave.
I knew we now stood an almost unbeatable chance of winning. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to actually hear what Keith and Chris, et al, were saying. I wanted to absorb the moment with all my brain cells focused absolutely on what finally was looking like a sure thing.
And a few hours later, there it was. The irrefutable truth that Barack Obama was the next President. The man whose ideas and values so perfectly matched mine. The man I'd for so long suspected of being a noisy tin can filled with nothing but air and a stray pebble, rattling endlessly around. The man who'd so quickly and unexpectedly risen to hero status for me -- that fateful trip to his website, and the reading of his forty-five pages of policy.
I woke up on November Fifth thinking of Fred Hampton, bleeding to death in his bed. Thinking of the bodies of the dead scattered on the campuses of Kent and Jackson State as their companions knelt by them in horror, or fled to escape the same fate. Thinking of a life lived, over half a century, knowing that the government of the United States was my enemy.
The world had turned upside down. Barack Obama was President. My President. I'd never used the possessive like that before. My country. What an idea.
And -- almost an afterthought -- a black man had been elected President of, to my mind, one of the most racist nations in the world. Truly, finally... everything was different. Toss out the old book, start a fresh one. On this day, November Fifth, 2008, the world starts over again.
It's a hell of a shift in perspective. "Ain't that a kick in the head?" I asked myself.
That morning, I found myself grinning like a fool as I answered, "Yep. One heck of a kick in the head."
He won't be perfect, he won't always make the choices I'll wish he would. But he's there, he's looking after the well-being of my country, he's doing what he believes is right, and sometimes making the compromises he must. He's there. Because we put him there. Against all the odds, against all reason, against everything history had taught me... we put him there.
And how can I end a piece like this without offering up the grateful statement that's so quickly becoming a cliche -- that, yes, we did.
I might even buy a flag.