A LESS PERFECT UNION, PART FOUR
and a more fitting metaphor.
And now the political-speechifying-response
equivalent of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Not quite as
calculated, but with almost as much
carnage...
But I have asserted a firm conviction — a conviction rooted in my faith in God...
I am never quite comfortable when someone who found God late in life -- much less with the help of a paranoid and irrational tour guide -- blusters about the strength of his faith. Of course, for that matter, I'm never quite comfortable when anyone, save a man or woman of the cloth whose job it is to do so, blusters about the strength of his faith.
Audacity of Hope? How about a little Humility of Faith?
...and my faith in the American people — that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
We must work together to heal our racial wounds and become a more perfect union. This is not exactly revolutionary stuff, folks. (Though you'd never know that to hear the endless praise of the speech.) I'm pretty sure I've heard a few people, sometime, somewhere, say this before. And not when they were forced to by their own uncertainty and equivocation over the paranoia and racism of one of their close confidantes.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past.
This is a good line and a good prescription. Though it would be even better if he suggested that large swaths of that community should stop being victims of its present. And of its future.
It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances — for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs — to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family.
I know at least one white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling that he will not support. But other than that, hard to argue with this passage either. Which is kind of refreshing, considering there is so much to argue with in so many other places.
You know, if you look. And think.
And it means taking full responsibility for own lives — by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children,...
Finally. A couple of clauses on fatherhood and family and personal responsibility.
But this will be all. One sentence, among almost 5,000 words, to address the single greatest failing of, and the single greatest problem now facing, the African-American community today. So much for straight talk.
...and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
And so much for getting serious and substantive in your prescriptions for an ailing community.
Ironically, this quintessentially American — and yes, conservative — notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
He failed to understand a hell of a lot more than that.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country — a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.
Uh, no. The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is that he said stupid, paranoid, profoundly and demonstrably untrue things with all the fire and fervor of a KKK Grand Dragon trying to rile up the troops before a cross-burning.
In other words, he responded to ignorance and racism with ignorance and racism.
But what we know — what we have seen — is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope — the audacity to hope — for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
Not content simply to quote himself, now he paraphrases and alludes to and maybe even pays homage to himself too. Which is, in the end, rather fitting. Because with each passing day it becomes clearer and clearer that the only real audacity Senator Obama ever shows is for the hope of his own presidency.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people;...
A good point. Though it would have been even better if he'd noted that, for the black community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of white people. Or in the dark corners of a culture that, while it beats a Rodney King, also produces a Colin Powell. Or a Barack Obama.
...that the legacy of discrimination — and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past — are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds — by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations.
Though I (and plenty of other amazing, successful, productive black men and women) would argue that there were most certainly ladders of opportunity for previous generations, the rest of this passage is spot-on.
Though, again, I can't help but wonder: where are the similar prescriptions for the African-American community? Besides reading to their children, what, exactly, do they need to work on?
This is straight and honest talk about race? This is uniting white and black? Making one side feel guilty and giving the other a free pass? In what is supposed to be one of the great and thoughtful speeches on race in American history? Please.
I can't wait to see how he tries to unite Democrats and Republicans. Though you'll forgive me for lacking the audacity of hope that it will amount to more than guilt-tripping Republicans and there-there-ing Democrats.
It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
Amen, brother.
Though, again, I'm still trying to figure out what's so unique or historic or revolutionary about these ideas. Consider, for example, this passage:
Every child in this country deserves to grow in knowledge and character and ideals. Nothing in my view is more important to our prosperity and goodness than cultivated minds and courageous hearts. As W.E.B. DuBois said a century ago, "Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States." Education is the essential beginning, but we've got to go further. To create communities of promise, we must help people build the confidence and faith to achieve their own dreams.
You know who said that? Presidential candidate George W. Bush. In the same July 2000 speech to the NAACP during which he unveiled a phrase more artful and powerful than anything I've yet heard fall from Senator Obama's lips: the soft bigotry of low expectations.
It was a great line. In a pretty good speech that, eight years ago, from a guy who would soon turn all of these dreams into nightmares, said the same things Senator Obama is saying now. What's the difference? You tell me.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand — that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
I don't believe that scripture said anything about the spirit our politics should reflect. But then that's the problem with paraphrasing scripture and delivering the Golden Rule as if it were a golden ticket at the end of a long and winding speech: where common sense ends and clichéd sensibilities begin, it can often be hard to tell.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle — as we did in the O.J. trial — or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina, or as fodder for the nightly news.
If he really thinks the attention piled upon the O.J. trial was about race, not about class or fame or celebrity or the tawdry combinations of bloody murder and all of the above, then he's even less intellectually honest than I feared. If he doesn't really think that, then he's even more of a phony than I thought.
We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
Note, again, the mathematics of obfuscation:
Offensive, incendiary remarks, made by my spiritual advisor of twenty years, and about which I have given conflicting responses = a gaffe by some Hillary supporter = John McCain's whiteness.
Wow. That may be the most disingenuous passage in the whole speech.
We can do that.
No, we can't.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
Translation: I am the hope and the change.
Or maybe: I am the resurrection and the life.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st-century economy. Not this time.
I had no idea that Hillary Clinton and John McCain didn't want to talk about those things. Or that the only way we could possibly help our poor children is to ignore your obfuscation and your disingenuous rhetoric and vote for you, Senator. Thanks for clearing that up.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the emergency room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I'll give him points for craft and for rhetorical fire here, even as I deduct even more for the sheer folly and hubris of it all. Because we've talked about all of these things before. Over and over and over again. The problem has not been the lack of talking -- it's been the lack of doing. It's been the lack of political will and practical application that stalls all solutions (even the bad ones) to these problems in a kind of socio-political purgatory between happy talk and hard choices.
But forget all of that for a moment. My real objection here, as it has been all along with Senator Obama and especially with his supporters, is the notion that talking about these things is somehow different. Or that talking about talking about them, or that talking about doing something about them, or that thinking about talking about doing something about them, is somehow new and fresh and the exclusive province of Senator Breath of Fresh Air.
Senator Obama (and his wife) and all of his most fawning, uncritical supporters are like those really annoying parents-to-be who, for the nine months of their child's gestation, become so wrapped up in themselves and their experience that they speak and act (and annoy) as if they are the only people in the history of the world ever to have been expecting a child. Every detail is a drama, every moment a monument; they can not possibly conceive of a world or an experience outside their own making.
I'm at the point now where I just want to shove old speeches (like that one from candidate Bush above) and old sonogram pictures and anything else I can find right up in their smug, self-absorbed faces and scream, YOU AREN'T THE FIRST PEOPLE EVER TO RUN A CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT AND TALK ABOUT RACE OR CHANGE OR CHILDREN! GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELVES!
It wouldn't make a bit of difference. But it sure would feel good.
I would not be running for president if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country.
And what, exactly, what that be? Talking about the issues? You running for President? Someone to feed their own narcissism?
This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation — the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
Translation: what gives me hope is that young people love me.
There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today — a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
Nice name dropping, Senator.
Oh, and here's one more nit to pick: he didn't actually speak there on Dr. King's birthday; he spoke six days after his birthday, on the federal holiday honoring his birthday.
There is a young, 23-year-old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there. And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom. She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too. Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Somebody might have told Ashley that the source of her mother's cancer were black who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally? Really?
When you're gonna go with one of these up-with-the-people stories -- and I blame Bill Clinton for all of them; he wasn't the first to use them, but he used them so damned effectively that everyone who came after him feel compelled to use them -- you must, at the very least, be sure that your Inspiration matches your Narration, and that your Straw Men match your Boogey Men.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
If there's anything I hate more -- damn you again, Bill Clinton! -- than these speech-ending tear-jerkers, it's one of these speech-ending tear-jerkers that doesn't give us enough information truly to appreciate it.
Why was he there because of Ashley? What did he mean by that? What was he really thinking?
Apparently none of those things -- you know, the real, honest, emotional complexities of the moment and of the people involved -- is really important. The only important things here are the pithiness of the tale and the emptiness of the rhetoric.
“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
Indeed.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the 221 years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
Where? In Philadelphia? In an allegedly meaningful moment of recognition that he can't even be bothered adequately to explain?
This conclusion is so weak, so ill-defined, so squishy and schmaltzy and insufferably sappy that it almost makes my head explode. It's an anecdote without end, without explanation, and without any sort of real or practical application -- not just to the point it's trying to make, but to the themes of the speech it's purporting to conclude. And yet I suppose that in that sense, as a kind of empty, feel-good, rhetorical non-sequitur, it is as fitting a conclusion for this speech, and as apt a metaphor for this campaign, as I could possibly imagine.
The Audacity of Hope? More like The Mendacity of Hype.
But I have asserted a firm conviction — a conviction rooted in my faith in God...
I am never quite comfortable when someone who found God late in life -- much less with the help of a paranoid and irrational tour guide -- blusters about the strength of his faith. Of course, for that matter, I'm never quite comfortable when anyone, save a man or woman of the cloth whose job it is to do so, blusters about the strength of his faith.
Audacity of Hope? How about a little Humility of Faith?
...and my faith in the American people — that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
We must work together to heal our racial wounds and become a more perfect union. This is not exactly revolutionary stuff, folks. (Though you'd never know that to hear the endless praise of the speech.) I'm pretty sure I've heard a few people, sometime, somewhere, say this before. And not when they were forced to by their own uncertainty and equivocation over the paranoia and racism of one of their close confidantes.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past.
This is a good line and a good prescription. Though it would be even better if he suggested that large swaths of that community should stop being victims of its present. And of its future.
It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances — for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs — to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family.
I know at least one white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling that he will not support. But other than that, hard to argue with this passage either. Which is kind of refreshing, considering there is so much to argue with in so many other places.
You know, if you look. And think.
And it means taking full responsibility for own lives — by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children,...
Finally. A couple of clauses on fatherhood and family and personal responsibility.
But this will be all. One sentence, among almost 5,000 words, to address the single greatest failing of, and the single greatest problem now facing, the African-American community today. So much for straight talk.
...and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
And so much for getting serious and substantive in your prescriptions for an ailing community.
Ironically, this quintessentially American — and yes, conservative — notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
He failed to understand a hell of a lot more than that.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country — a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.
Uh, no. The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is that he said stupid, paranoid, profoundly and demonstrably untrue things with all the fire and fervor of a KKK Grand Dragon trying to rile up the troops before a cross-burning.
In other words, he responded to ignorance and racism with ignorance and racism.
But what we know — what we have seen — is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope — the audacity to hope — for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
Not content simply to quote himself, now he paraphrases and alludes to and maybe even pays homage to himself too. Which is, in the end, rather fitting. Because with each passing day it becomes clearer and clearer that the only real audacity Senator Obama ever shows is for the hope of his own presidency.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people;...
A good point. Though it would have been even better if he'd noted that, for the black community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of white people. Or in the dark corners of a culture that, while it beats a Rodney King, also produces a Colin Powell. Or a Barack Obama.
...that the legacy of discrimination — and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past — are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds — by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations.
Though I (and plenty of other amazing, successful, productive black men and women) would argue that there were most certainly ladders of opportunity for previous generations, the rest of this passage is spot-on.
Though, again, I can't help but wonder: where are the similar prescriptions for the African-American community? Besides reading to their children, what, exactly, do they need to work on?
This is straight and honest talk about race? This is uniting white and black? Making one side feel guilty and giving the other a free pass? In what is supposed to be one of the great and thoughtful speeches on race in American history? Please.
I can't wait to see how he tries to unite Democrats and Republicans. Though you'll forgive me for lacking the audacity of hope that it will amount to more than guilt-tripping Republicans and there-there-ing Democrats.
It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
Amen, brother.
Though, again, I'm still trying to figure out what's so unique or historic or revolutionary about these ideas. Consider, for example, this passage:
Every child in this country deserves to grow in knowledge and character and ideals. Nothing in my view is more important to our prosperity and goodness than cultivated minds and courageous hearts. As W.E.B. DuBois said a century ago, "Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States." Education is the essential beginning, but we've got to go further. To create communities of promise, we must help people build the confidence and faith to achieve their own dreams.
You know who said that? Presidential candidate George W. Bush. In the same July 2000 speech to the NAACP during which he unveiled a phrase more artful and powerful than anything I've yet heard fall from Senator Obama's lips: the soft bigotry of low expectations.
It was a great line. In a pretty good speech that, eight years ago, from a guy who would soon turn all of these dreams into nightmares, said the same things Senator Obama is saying now. What's the difference? You tell me.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand — that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
I don't believe that scripture said anything about the spirit our politics should reflect. But then that's the problem with paraphrasing scripture and delivering the Golden Rule as if it were a golden ticket at the end of a long and winding speech: where common sense ends and clichéd sensibilities begin, it can often be hard to tell.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle — as we did in the O.J. trial — or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina, or as fodder for the nightly news.
If he really thinks the attention piled upon the O.J. trial was about race, not about class or fame or celebrity or the tawdry combinations of bloody murder and all of the above, then he's even less intellectually honest than I feared. If he doesn't really think that, then he's even more of a phony than I thought.
We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
Note, again, the mathematics of obfuscation:
Offensive, incendiary remarks, made by my spiritual advisor of twenty years, and about which I have given conflicting responses = a gaffe by some Hillary supporter = John McCain's whiteness.
Wow. That may be the most disingenuous passage in the whole speech.
We can do that.
No, we can't.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
Translation: I am the hope and the change.
Or maybe: I am the resurrection and the life.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st-century economy. Not this time.
I had no idea that Hillary Clinton and John McCain didn't want to talk about those things. Or that the only way we could possibly help our poor children is to ignore your obfuscation and your disingenuous rhetoric and vote for you, Senator. Thanks for clearing that up.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the emergency room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I'll give him points for craft and for rhetorical fire here, even as I deduct even more for the sheer folly and hubris of it all. Because we've talked about all of these things before. Over and over and over again. The problem has not been the lack of talking -- it's been the lack of doing. It's been the lack of political will and practical application that stalls all solutions (even the bad ones) to these problems in a kind of socio-political purgatory between happy talk and hard choices.
But forget all of that for a moment. My real objection here, as it has been all along with Senator Obama and especially with his supporters, is the notion that talking about these things is somehow different. Or that talking about talking about them, or that talking about doing something about them, or that thinking about talking about doing something about them, is somehow new and fresh and the exclusive province of Senator Breath of Fresh Air.
Senator Obama (and his wife) and all of his most fawning, uncritical supporters are like those really annoying parents-to-be who, for the nine months of their child's gestation, become so wrapped up in themselves and their experience that they speak and act (and annoy) as if they are the only people in the history of the world ever to have been expecting a child. Every detail is a drama, every moment a monument; they can not possibly conceive of a world or an experience outside their own making.
I'm at the point now where I just want to shove old speeches (like that one from candidate Bush above) and old sonogram pictures and anything else I can find right up in their smug, self-absorbed faces and scream, YOU AREN'T THE FIRST PEOPLE EVER TO RUN A CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT AND TALK ABOUT RACE OR CHANGE OR CHILDREN! GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELVES!
It wouldn't make a bit of difference. But it sure would feel good.
I would not be running for president if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country.
And what, exactly, what that be? Talking about the issues? You running for President? Someone to feed their own narcissism?
This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation — the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
Translation: what gives me hope is that young people love me.
There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today — a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
Nice name dropping, Senator.
Oh, and here's one more nit to pick: he didn't actually speak there on Dr. King's birthday; he spoke six days after his birthday, on the federal holiday honoring his birthday.
There is a young, 23-year-old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there. And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom. She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too. Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Somebody might have told Ashley that the source of her mother's cancer were black who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally? Really?
When you're gonna go with one of these up-with-the-people stories -- and I blame Bill Clinton for all of them; he wasn't the first to use them, but he used them so damned effectively that everyone who came after him feel compelled to use them -- you must, at the very least, be sure that your Inspiration matches your Narration, and that your Straw Men match your Boogey Men.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
If there's anything I hate more -- damn you again, Bill Clinton! -- than these speech-ending tear-jerkers, it's one of these speech-ending tear-jerkers that doesn't give us enough information truly to appreciate it.
Why was he there because of Ashley? What did he mean by that? What was he really thinking?
Apparently none of those things -- you know, the real, honest, emotional complexities of the moment and of the people involved -- is really important. The only important things here are the pithiness of the tale and the emptiness of the rhetoric.
“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
Indeed.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the 221 years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
Where? In Philadelphia? In an allegedly meaningful moment of recognition that he can't even be bothered adequately to explain?
This conclusion is so weak, so ill-defined, so squishy and schmaltzy and insufferably sappy that it almost makes my head explode. It's an anecdote without end, without explanation, and without any sort of real or practical application -- not just to the point it's trying to make, but to the themes of the speech it's purporting to conclude. And yet I suppose that in that sense, as a kind of empty, feel-good, rhetorical non-sequitur, it is as fitting a conclusion for this speech, and as apt a metaphor for this campaign, as I could possibly imagine.
The Audacity of Hope? More like The Mendacity of Hype.
Posted: Wed - April 2, 2008 at 10:26 AM
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Published On: Apr 02, 2008 11:25 AM
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Published On: Apr 02, 2008 11:25 AM