December 9, 2009
December 1, 2009
Lessons Learned...Somewhere. Part 3.
I’m thinking about something as I’m reading the book Miracle at St. Anna by James McBride. This book is about the black American Buffalo soldiers who fought in Italy in World War II. The characters in the book talk often about the persecution they experience at home in America and the racism of the white officers in the army. There is a passage where one of the black soldiers is thinking about what will happen to him when the war is over and he thinks if he goes back to America, he’ll be lucky to get a job delivering mail to white people. That image made a strong impression on me. I felt the heavy truth in it and I felt sad. I felt sadness for all the division and hatred of history, and then another wave of sadness for all the racial hatred that still exists today.
But then I felt better because for a moment I understood what the real significance of having a black man as the President of the United States means. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thought about this deeply before--I wrote my Senior Thesis in college on the racial significance of the election of Barack Obama. But I don’t think it was until tonight, reading a novel that I felt it.
And what I especially felt was this: we have no idea if the policies Obama institutes and changes will have any “historical” effect on America—it’s too early to tell. But he will matter for more than his politics. He matters because he is the manifestation of American advancement. He is progress; he is our country moving beyond its own history. And that’s really something, even if none of his policies have any lasting historical meaning. Even if all the legislature that comes across his desk is eventually wiped out, he—the man and the manifestation—never will be.
But then I felt better because for a moment I understood what the real significance of having a black man as the President of the United States means. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thought about this deeply before--I wrote my Senior Thesis in college on the racial significance of the election of Barack Obama. But I don’t think it was until tonight, reading a novel that I felt it.
And what I especially felt was this: we have no idea if the policies Obama institutes and changes will have any “historical” effect on America—it’s too early to tell. But he will matter for more than his politics. He matters because he is the manifestation of American advancement. He is progress; he is our country moving beyond its own history. And that’s really something, even if none of his policies have any lasting historical meaning. Even if all the legislature that comes across his desk is eventually wiped out, he—the man and the manifestation—never will be.
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