Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Waiting
For some reason the checkout lines were long and slow tonight at the Harris Teeter. The woman a little further along in the line next to me was staring right ahead, not blinking, totally zoning out. She was about 50, black, and slightly overweight. Her shopping cart consisted entirely of several quarts of orange juice, three or four bags of frozen peas, and a single cantaloupe. When she made it to the magazine rack she laid her arm against the black wire, and her finger came to rest on a People Magazine. She looked at the big yellow PREGNANCY BLISS headline shining below Angelina Jolie's bared teeth, and she moved closer to it, and then she began rubbing the cover with her thumb back and forth, again and again, over and over, wearing down the sheen until it was dull and smudged, staring at it all the while with a little smile that might or might not have really been there at all. Then she turned and put her food on the belt. "Did you find everything you needed?" the checkout guy asked. "Yes, thank you," she answered quickly. He scanned her items. She waited to hear her total, hands folded atop her purse.
Friday, November 28, 2008
I couldn't sleep the other night, so I dicked around on YouTube until I found myself re-watching Obama's "Race Speech." I noticed a few things I'd missed the first time around.
1. In this speech and throughout his campaign, Obama was speaking as an ambassador, as a black guy who, because of rhetorical skills and biography is uniquely able to explain the black experience to White America. He makes remarkable rhetorical concessions to do this--for example, he says that sentiments like those expressed by Reverend Wright "aren't always expressed in polite company." It's phrases like these that make old guard Civil Rights warriors like Jesse Jackson want to cut his nuts off. But it's also the kind of talk that makes even whites who disagree with his policies and are somewhat skittish about black politicians (but might not say so in polite company) perk up and listen. He's speaking to them calmly, with understanding, from the next seat at the table, and not from behind a barricade. And that's a kind of revolution.
2. The Civil Rights movement now exists primarily as a story parents tell their children. As they grow they internralize the movement from slavery to freedom. There is a shared history here. And although this is a specific history about a specific people who comprise 10 percent of the American population, it is still THE American story. It explains who we all are, where we all were, and where we are all going.
The key passage is from Dreams from my Father. Crucially, he paints himself as an outsider, like a visitor from outside the fold seeking reconciliation:
People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.
With this, he's speaking directly to me, and to the millions of white kids in this country who've grown up studying, loving, and living black music, literature, language and culture. He might have told us to step off, because we could never understand, or because our affection can seem affected or insincere or commercially-driven. But he lets us in with open arms. Damn right, we should all be stirred and thrilled when we learn about Harriet Tubman as children. Hell yes, Sam Cooke should give us chills when he hits the high notes. When the beautiful white woman kills the black boy on the train in Baraka's The Dutchman, she kills us too. While the Invisible Man's deepest worry is that "on the lower frequencies, I speak for you," Obama knows that he speaks for us, and that this is something to be celebrated.
3. Throughout the primary and general election campaigns, his enemies consistently went after him with one simple attack: Do you know who Obama is, really? Most sensible people understood this to be desperate dog-whistling, aimed at white voters who might be wary of the exotic, black candidate. And it certainly was that. But I think that there's also something more here, something that neither Clinton nor McCain had the inclination to fully explore. Reading the text of Obama's speech, with all its penetrating insight and understanding, still leaves you without the full impact of his delivery. Watching him, it's clear that he's not just a writer and political theorist; he's also an actor, who can deliver his lines with remarkably persuasive precision.
And there is something more than a little disconcerting about this. It creates a kind of tension in me as I watch him: it's clear, on the one hand, that he's utterly confident in both the objective truth of his analysis and the subjective truth of his experience. And yet, on the other hand, I can't help but be equally conscious of his performance. I can hear the calculation in his voice. I know that he knows exactly how to move me; I can see the connections before he makes them; I can anticipate the crescendos, and yet they hit me just as hard--even harder this time, the second time around. I'm frightened that he knows me so well.
I think this fear is the basis for an entire industry of anti-Obama fear-mongering. It's there in the faces of right-wing commentators when they dismiss Obama as a cynical politician, as a messiah for deluded masses who don't realize they're being conned by a particularly gifted actor. It was the basis for a particularly awesome recent Onion headline. It's a testament to Obama's skill, as well as to the supremely-fucked state of our country, that he was able to win despite this.
After all, what can be more frightening for white bigots than a black man who truly sees them for what they are?
1. In this speech and throughout his campaign, Obama was speaking as an ambassador, as a black guy who, because of rhetorical skills and biography is uniquely able to explain the black experience to White America. He makes remarkable rhetorical concessions to do this--for example, he says that sentiments like those expressed by Reverend Wright "aren't always expressed in polite company." It's phrases like these that make old guard Civil Rights warriors like Jesse Jackson want to cut his nuts off. But it's also the kind of talk that makes even whites who disagree with his policies and are somewhat skittish about black politicians (but might not say so in polite company) perk up and listen. He's speaking to them calmly, with understanding, from the next seat at the table, and not from behind a barricade. And that's a kind of revolution.
2. The Civil Rights movement now exists primarily as a story parents tell their children. As they grow they internralize the movement from slavery to freedom. There is a shared history here. And although this is a specific history about a specific people who comprise 10 percent of the American population, it is still THE American story. It explains who we all are, where we all were, and where we are all going.
The key passage is from Dreams from my Father. Crucially, he paints himself as an outsider, like a visitor from outside the fold seeking reconciliation:
People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.
With this, he's speaking directly to me, and to the millions of white kids in this country who've grown up studying, loving, and living black music, literature, language and culture. He might have told us to step off, because we could never understand, or because our affection can seem affected or insincere or commercially-driven. But he lets us in with open arms. Damn right, we should all be stirred and thrilled when we learn about Harriet Tubman as children. Hell yes, Sam Cooke should give us chills when he hits the high notes. When the beautiful white woman kills the black boy on the train in Baraka's The Dutchman, she kills us too. While the Invisible Man's deepest worry is that "on the lower frequencies, I speak for you," Obama knows that he speaks for us, and that this is something to be celebrated.
3. Throughout the primary and general election campaigns, his enemies consistently went after him with one simple attack: Do you know who Obama is, really? Most sensible people understood this to be desperate dog-whistling, aimed at white voters who might be wary of the exotic, black candidate. And it certainly was that. But I think that there's also something more here, something that neither Clinton nor McCain had the inclination to fully explore. Reading the text of Obama's speech, with all its penetrating insight and understanding, still leaves you without the full impact of his delivery. Watching him, it's clear that he's not just a writer and political theorist; he's also an actor, who can deliver his lines with remarkably persuasive precision.
And there is something more than a little disconcerting about this. It creates a kind of tension in me as I watch him: it's clear, on the one hand, that he's utterly confident in both the objective truth of his analysis and the subjective truth of his experience. And yet, on the other hand, I can't help but be equally conscious of his performance. I can hear the calculation in his voice. I know that he knows exactly how to move me; I can see the connections before he makes them; I can anticipate the crescendos, and yet they hit me just as hard--even harder this time, the second time around. I'm frightened that he knows me so well.
I think this fear is the basis for an entire industry of anti-Obama fear-mongering. It's there in the faces of right-wing commentators when they dismiss Obama as a cynical politician, as a messiah for deluded masses who don't realize they're being conned by a particularly gifted actor. It was the basis for a particularly awesome recent Onion headline. It's a testament to Obama's skill, as well as to the supremely-fucked state of our country, that he was able to win despite this.
After all, what can be more frightening for white bigots than a black man who truly sees them for what they are?
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
I Hate Slate, vol. 254
Ah, Slate. Those wonderful people. They’ve once again managed to piss me off in that heated/slightly ashamed, I’m-not-sure-this-is-worth-my time-oh-what-the-hell-fuck-you sort of way that I find so frustrating and yet so enjoyable...
Today’s topic is a snippet of snark by David Barreby called “Only in America: The Wrongheaded American belief that Barack Obama Could Only Happen Here.”
Before we get started, I’d like to note that the author has taken the admirable route of trumpeting his disdain with a typically Slatean “Americans are totally full of themselves” title. That's their bread and butter—and they particularly love articles that paint liberal, educated Americans as self-obsessed and full of themselves. Exhibit A:
Barreby begins with the tried and true rhetorical flourish of describing somebody we think we know (Obama) and suddenly, woah! The joke's really on us when we learn that Obama's not the only national historical leader who’s ethnic, has a foreign sounding name, a non-Christian father, was a bestselling author, had an outsider’s detachment and clear ambition—Benjamin Disraeli was too! Can we Americans, Barreby asks piously, please stop patting ourselves on the back about the supposed uniqueness of electing Barack Obama president?
First of all, the phrase “patting ourselves on the back,” with all its elitist condescension, does not remotely describe the feelings and attitudes of the millions of Americans who are happy Obama won. We are joyful, ecstatic, amazed, relieved, and proud of our country. But there is nothing that smacks of American exceptionalism in our celebration. This is about joining the rest of the world. This is about celebrating with the Kenyans and Hawaiians and Indonesians and Iranians and Indo-Europeans all over the world who are delighted that we have thrown off our suicidal impulses of the last 8 years. Reading Slate, of course, you'd think Obama supporters spend all their time hiding our heads in the sand and mouthing insipid platitudes about our inherent greatness while that greatness crumbles.
There is nothing unique, Barreby insists, a black man getting elected in a country tarred by slavery and institutionalized racism, in which whites who publicly murdered blacks could get away scot free until less than 50 years ago (and more recently if you're a NYC police officer with probable cause). No, says Barreby; don’t you see, Napoleon conquered Europe! And he was from Corsica! Also, the president of Peru is Japanese. And Sonia Gandhi was born in Italy. And while there are hundreds of different tribes in Kenya, a guy who was president there once wasn’t from the biggest tribe. And all sorts of Roman emperors were Arab and what have you.
Next comes my favorite moment, when Barreby says that “Instead of expecting, against the evidence, that people only want a leader who is ethnically, religiously, or culturally "like us,'' Americans ought to be examining how and why people decide that "like us'' can be based on criteria other than race or religion.”
Good lord. Does he really believe that the people who voted for Barack Obama are people who expected “against the evidence,” that Americans would only elect a leader like them? How many twisted hoops of irony has he jumped through to convince himself that the people who celebrate what Barack Obama means to this country and the world are the ones who are blind to history? Also, what the hell, dude? Every president in American history has been a white man. Alongside the fact of Napoleon’s climb to the top of the French army, every French president/prime minister/emperor/dictator has been a white man; every British prime minister has been white; every fucking leader of every majority white country since before modern race relations became a factor 500 fucking years ago has been white. You want white Americans to begin to broaden their conception of acceptable leaders to be based on criteria other than race or religion? WE JUST DID THAT 2 WEEKS AGO YOU NUMBSKULL!!!
Before I make too big a deal of this (ok, it's probably too late), let’s close with a little perspective. In Barreby’s defense, he does make some mildy interesting points about how these historical figures exhibit similarities. And it’s surely good to know history and to use it to inform our understanding of today. But to claim that Obama’s election is somehow less revolutionary because the Emperor of Rome was once an Arab is retarded. While there are similarities between Obama and Disraeli and others, there is no precedent for what has been accomplished here. Ignoring or diminishing the amazing and beautiful things around us with flimsy reasoning to suit one’s ironic, laconic, hipsteresque repose, on the other hand, is nothing new at Slate.com.
Today’s topic is a snippet of snark by David Barreby called “Only in America: The Wrongheaded American belief that Barack Obama Could Only Happen Here.”
Before we get started, I’d like to note that the author has taken the admirable route of trumpeting his disdain with a typically Slatean “Americans are totally full of themselves” title. That's their bread and butter—and they particularly love articles that paint liberal, educated Americans as self-obsessed and full of themselves. Exhibit A:
Barreby begins with the tried and true rhetorical flourish of describing somebody we think we know (Obama) and suddenly, woah! The joke's really on us when we learn that Obama's not the only national historical leader who’s ethnic, has a foreign sounding name, a non-Christian father, was a bestselling author, had an outsider’s detachment and clear ambition—Benjamin Disraeli was too! Can we Americans, Barreby asks piously, please stop patting ourselves on the back about the supposed uniqueness of electing Barack Obama president?
First of all, the phrase “patting ourselves on the back,” with all its elitist condescension, does not remotely describe the feelings and attitudes of the millions of Americans who are happy Obama won. We are joyful, ecstatic, amazed, relieved, and proud of our country. But there is nothing that smacks of American exceptionalism in our celebration. This is about joining the rest of the world. This is about celebrating with the Kenyans and Hawaiians and Indonesians and Iranians and Indo-Europeans all over the world who are delighted that we have thrown off our suicidal impulses of the last 8 years. Reading Slate, of course, you'd think Obama supporters spend all their time hiding our heads in the sand and mouthing insipid platitudes about our inherent greatness while that greatness crumbles.
There is nothing unique, Barreby insists, a black man getting elected in a country tarred by slavery and institutionalized racism, in which whites who publicly murdered blacks could get away scot free until less than 50 years ago (and more recently if you're a NYC police officer with probable cause). No, says Barreby; don’t you see, Napoleon conquered Europe! And he was from Corsica! Also, the president of Peru is Japanese. And Sonia Gandhi was born in Italy. And while there are hundreds of different tribes in Kenya, a guy who was president there once wasn’t from the biggest tribe. And all sorts of Roman emperors were Arab and what have you.
Next comes my favorite moment, when Barreby says that “Instead of expecting, against the evidence, that people only want a leader who is ethnically, religiously, or culturally "like us,'' Americans ought to be examining how and why people decide that "like us'' can be based on criteria other than race or religion.”
Good lord. Does he really believe that the people who voted for Barack Obama are people who expected “against the evidence,” that Americans would only elect a leader like them? How many twisted hoops of irony has he jumped through to convince himself that the people who celebrate what Barack Obama means to this country and the world are the ones who are blind to history? Also, what the hell, dude? Every president in American history has been a white man. Alongside the fact of Napoleon’s climb to the top of the French army, every French president/prime minister/emperor/dictator has been a white man; every British prime minister has been white; every fucking leader of every majority white country since before modern race relations became a factor 500 fucking years ago has been white. You want white Americans to begin to broaden their conception of acceptable leaders to be based on criteria other than race or religion? WE JUST DID THAT 2 WEEKS AGO YOU NUMBSKULL!!!
Before I make too big a deal of this (ok, it's probably too late), let’s close with a little perspective. In Barreby’s defense, he does make some mildy interesting points about how these historical figures exhibit similarities. And it’s surely good to know history and to use it to inform our understanding of today. But to claim that Obama’s election is somehow less revolutionary because the Emperor of Rome was once an Arab is retarded. While there are similarities between Obama and Disraeli and others, there is no precedent for what has been accomplished here. Ignoring or diminishing the amazing and beautiful things around us with flimsy reasoning to suit one’s ironic, laconic, hipsteresque repose, on the other hand, is nothing new at Slate.com.
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