This short but beautiful post by Ta-Nehisi Coates inspired a little reflection of my own on the impact of what might be about to happen on Tuesday. I was thinking today about the fact that this is, well, actually about to happen.
A little background: I was born in 1984 and remember being vaguely aware of Bush 41, but Bill Clinton was really the first president who I actually followed, and he was kind of what I thought of when you said "president" -- a generic white, smart, ostentatiously culturally southern Democratic centrist-technocrat. (Imagine the one-eighty my little ass did when this Dubya joker strutted onto the scene!) I honestly thought all the rest of the presidents were going to be like that -- and but for 537 votes in Florida, I was almost right! Obviously, that was more than a little naive, but these first impressions make a big impact on how kids grow up viewing the world and how their sense of "normal" gets calibrated.
Fast forward to...well, tomorrow.
The implication is simple but extraordinary: Assuming Obama wins and serves two terms, then for the generational cohort born between 1998 and 2008 or so, a black guy will be the first president that they are generally aware of. It will be what they think of when you say "president." It will be genuinely a little jarring to them when (if!) we elect Obama's non-black successor in 2016. (Patrick '16 anybody? Get on board!) A white dude as president? Imagine that!
Now, all this isn't to understate the impact of our traditional culture -- it will always be the case that the 43 guys in the history books before Barack are old white guys of some strain or another, and that won't disappear, and it shouldn't. It's part of our past, and many of those men have been good and worthy leaders.
But when we talk about the revolutionary aspect of electing a black president, we tend to focus -- not crazily, I think -- on the impact of this on boomers and oldies who never thought they'd see the day. But those people have seen old white guys come and go for decades -- for them, Obama is an achievement, a proud one, but not a fundamental paradigm shift. He's just an interesting and heartening twist in a history that's been getting their hopes up and dashing them for decades. The jaundice has set in already.
But for a new generation, there will be no preoccupation with the fraught legacy of the civil rights movement, whether Bill was really the "first black president," what to do with Al and Jesse, etc., etc. -- there will just be a vague but definite sense that a black dude in the white house is more or less standard operating procedure. Think about that. This will be the first generation to grow up hearing their white parents say stupid shit about black folks, then look over to the TV and see a black guy running a country full of all different colors of folks, and by all indications, doing it pretty well. That's a massive, massive shift and it's why I do think an Obama presidency will transform race in this country, but that the impact also may not be clear until about 5-10 years after his term ends, when all these kids start growing up and becoming the parents of the next set of kids. And the long list of old white men in their history books will have one very visible, immutable exception.
God, what a beautiful country.