Against all odds, there’s an article in The New Republic about the campaign Obama has been running as this descendant of the Ellisonian “Invisible Man,” and what that implies about who he might become as a leader. It’s a pretty exceptional piece of criticism, and it’s kept me steeped in thought since last night. (I should give fair warning, though, that if you’re more inclined towards the semantics of public policy over the language of literature, you might be bristled by words like “rejection,” etc. Don’t get worked up.)
I’m not sure what I wanted to say about it, even to myself. I have been trying to wrap my head around all the ways one can approach “otherness,” and my relationship to what’s addressed by both Obama and Samuels here. There is so, so much to consider.
I wanted to talk about the metaphor of the body. The masculinist anatomy of strength and control, the intersections of race and femininity. Blackness and brownness in this election. Degrees of ‘whiteness,’ the space between self-identity and social perception, privileging one cultural history and identity within oneself. The “foreigner” as the “father.” The maternal as both problematic and essentially formative to the state. But I am inevitably drawn back to my favorite phenomenon—and that is language and silence.
It’s true that I’ve appeared to do myself what I am so confused by on the right, which is resent one candidate so strongly I support his opponent by default and not on his own merits. I have a feeling that’s what a lot of Obama’s support looks like on the surface, but is likely not the case for most of us. The fragility of the moment makes it hard to speak with very much candor, if one can consciously recognize it at all. The success of his campaign is a testament to the desire for a new critical approach which has finally found its appeal further inland than the “activist” crowd. The “change” that Obama represents for us is beyond a return to more humane public policy, but a “change” in how we stratify and distribute political power.
That’s a really hard thing to talk about without freaking the fuck out of everybody who is clutching desperately to any scrap of entitlement they’ve been doled out like they won’t live to see a world any better than what we’ve got.
Here’s to hoping they’re wrong.
Part of what feels so grim about the devolving momentum of McCain’s campaign is that its essentially handed over a script to a part of the population that were formerly, to be frank, too stupid to articulate themselves on a national level, and thus were unlikely to mobilize. It’s not that they didn’t exist before or that they wouldn’t after, it’s just that they were sleeping dogs I had hoped would die in slumber. It’s sad to watch McCain suddenly realize as he tries in vain to eat his own words that the consequences of language extend to nearly cellular measure; I have to wonder if it’s the first time he’s ever seen in action how deeply and irrevocably speech can shape our perceptions of reality. To live 72 years on this earth and have that be novel? Now that’s privilege.
Another part of my discomfort is that I, too, had the same question he and Palin were so pointedly asking: who is Barack Obama? The difference between us, however, is that the answer we both suspect fills me with incredible awe and hope while at the same time, terrifies McCain’s base constituency to their very cores.
I haven’t read Dreams of My Father (though now I must), but I have read The Audacity of Hope. It wasn’t the content that stunned me exactly, but really his ability to see. Barack Obama is a writer. That is, he understands the intertextuality of the world, the ligaments which connect the singular to the infinite. But that sensitivity seemed also to be mitigated by the canny, more analytic temperament of a politician, maybe almost a born politician. A writer inherently appreciates the construction of identity in all senses and on all levels. The possibility of a president directing policy informed by these sensibilities is so idyllic to me that I can almost feel parts of myself wishing against it for fear of disappointment.
And it has been disappointing. I realized after reading Samuels’ article that I have been growing silenty anxious over the last two months, itching for a clearer gesture that once sworn into office, Obama will sort of unfold himself from the electable “blank screen” he has become, and burgeon into a political figure that issues a challenge for us to be better, to elevate our standards, to be who we say we are. It would be the opposite of these self-aggrandizing, congratulatory pats on the back offered to us by empty, disconnected nationalists like Sarah Palin who opt for cheerful adjectives like “imperfect (question mark?)” to describe the state of our nation, rather than risk a more frowny face word which would hint at the darker cultural wounds they are either too cowardly or too hateful to face with any real honesty. As Samuels notes, “what voters want is to feel that things will change, without too much uncomfortable detail about what will actually happen.” It’s a strategy vital to his campaign, but I am slightly disheartened by how gingerly he has hedged his bets.
That is the thing about The Audacity of Hope. It is artfully worded for digestibility to a degree that feels like restraint; he’s brilliant enough to intuitively sense what might alarm a white, privileged audience about the humane side of his political imagination, but not sinister enough to obscure it convincingly. It’s not dishonest, to be sure. But if Samuels’ reading of Dreams is as sharp as it sounds, then I might describe it as an undercurrent of benevolent paternalism burdening The Audacity of Hope, like Obama doesn’t quite believe his audience is grown up enough to hear the “real talk” of how to begin this critical shift toward healthier power dynamics, and what sacrifices we would make in exchange for what dividends.
In a sense he’d be right, of course; anyone dropping bombs like “hegemony” in mainstream discourse can’t really get a foot in the door. But for how long can we hold off demanding better of ourselves before that cautiousness turns into enabling? And what better proof of our readiness than our impassioned support–which has been powerful since the start, and only on the rise?
But what about if and when he gets elected? Will he continue the tradition of self-congratulatory pats on the back by remaining a “blank screen” on which we project our masturbatory fantasy of having achieved this farcical ‘post-race’ society (“Everybody is finally equal now that there’s a black president, so stop whining”)? Will he continue to construct himself with, as Samuels calls it, narratives made of “utter bullshit” like Obama having had a “childhood like any other.”? Or will we finally be able to look at the state of our culture right now as a moment of heightened history and be able to listen without defensiveness to the realities of this world that one just doesn’t see on the whitewashed network news?
It could go either way. The deciding factor is likely to depend on the sad cultural chasm exacerbated by McCain’s unprincipled campaign in recent weeks, how loud and low it goes, and for how long. It could serve to force us to confront the most malignant parts of the American psyche and be a polarizing catalyst which demands action. The gravity and scope of racism in America has been undermined by its tacit dismissal as a series of isolated anomalies rather than the institution it really is. It’s the kind of discussion that necessarily must be lead by someone with a personal stake in the marginalized perspective, someone who can talk about oppression without victimizing, talk about privilege without alienating—someone who can explain that we will not miss what we’ll be giving up, that real freedom and autonomy is not at the cost of others. Have we ever seen a politician better equipped to do that than Obama? The rubes would make a great bunch of scapegoats to ally ourselves against as a final sacrifice, something to point to and say, “You were powerful and wise enough to not allow your own country to head in this direction. It is within your control to change the landscape which creates this.”
But that would be a gift. More probable is a future where this brewing “culture war” calcifies completely and we collapse, or worse and yet still more likely, it slowly strangles us until the US is as much of a failed experiment as the USSR. I really am not sure anymore. I vacillate between moments of unblushing sanguinity and defeated cynicism on the hour lately. I comfort myself with the reminder that whatever happens, however heartbreaking the disappointment, the world won’t end–or maybe it will, only to give way to a new one.
I concede that Obama does sound almost “too good to be true.” I have a secret hope that it’s because he might be even better. Whether he can find the faith in both himself and the people of this nation to realize the breadth of his potential as a leader, and whether we can find the courage to allow him that freedom, still remains to be seen.
