This Is How We Begin Again

At its beginning, the appearance was delayed, with technical false starts, and hesitations. Then, he came to the microphones, ... adjusting them, fidgeting a bit with them, ... and it seemed in that moment his comfort and purpose and stature returned.

Barack Obama spoke to us all today. He is, coincidentally, running for the nomination of his party to become President of the United States. I say "coincidentally", because today's moments before us, in which he voiced truths he understands clearly and personally, to the American People, had less to do with his run for the presidency, than about us all. It was as if he asked us all to pause, in essence saying that unless we decide upon the basis of our relationship as a people, we can not even go ahead to the coming primary elections, let alone the general election in November.

Why did he discuss race at all? Why bring up this all too apparent attribute which so apparently stands in his way on the path to the White House? The answer to that, ... is the very essence of his speech today. He was forced to do so as a result of personal affiliations with a minister. As the son of a white woman, raised by a white grandmother and grandfather, ... what could stand in his way? Was it simply his father? Was it the fact that his "race" was determined to be "less than white" because his Kenyan father was Black? The "appearance" that Barack Obama presents to the world in the light of day, is that of a man whose parents had different skin colors, hair texture, height and ethnic origins. Ironically, the gift he gave to America today was based upon his clear understanding of the experiences of both his mother and father, his grandmother, his fellow Americans, Africans and Asians.

I have heard politicians speak when cornered. This was not that sort of speech. This was a lesson in civics, and genetics, ... in political science, and social science, practical and liberation theology. This was a gift, in the middle of a long road, from a person who has, despite prejudice and denunciation, retained a positive and optimistic view of what America must become, should she wish to survive much longer. These are the words of a person who views his experience as one of privileged opportunity, but will not, and can not, ignore the fact that his elders, his mother, and his sisters and brothers have not fared as well. At the same time he understands the view of immigrants and White middle class America, when it feels that the deck is marked against them, if they are allowed to play at the economic game at all.

The clamor will start now. The pundits will not know what to make of these sorts of words, and of this message. If they have heard such a message before, they have likely forgotten it from their childhood. If they personally espouse its meaning and fully comprehend its import, ... they might fear their owners' position, and worry about fashioning too fond a review.

I am young at heart. I am chronologically middle-aged, some 57 years old. I grew up in Iowa, Kansas and Pennsylvania, among lily-white suburbanites. By March each year, I am so pale I appear as some sort of green ghost. I am a male who has worked in many industries, corporate CEO, sales, marketing and management, ... pacemaker and heart valve sales, ... bedside healthcare, real estate brokerage, computer software consulting, ... hardware retailing, and restaurant work.

I suspect I will not hear such words again in my lifetime such as Barack Obama spoke today. I know, ... for I have never heard such words before, nor expect to again before I die. The scarcity of such words as these is their very purpose, I suppose, and that is what makes them inescapably important. They are about race, ... but they are also about anything which casts one person against another for something so arbitrary as "race", or gender, or ethnic origin, or eye color, or shoe size, ... or ... whatever one person may forcibly apply as a difference to their advantage over another human being. The purpose of such words as we heard today is to place us all upon notice, that the failings they expose in us are not enough to justify our practices of cruelty and power over others ever again.

Such messages, when we receive them, are a form of spiritual "checkmate". We must confront them with a bolder move, a more inclusive solution, ... or relent, and declare ourselves the loser, once again, only to begin over from scratch.

I worried this morning. I did not want to hear Obama apologize for his pastor's words, and wilt beneath the klieg lights of the glowering political press. Hillary had not done that for Geraldine, nor McCain for Hagee, ... but this was different. The hatred and enmity against Pastor Wright had a weekend over which to fester and grow. It was intended to sway old white men such as myself.

That was not what I received today, no matter how it might be construed by the pundits. What I saw and heard, was a message that was clear and inclusive, and respectful of every single person with a stake in the outcome, ... in the election, and in our nation who would be willing to hear him out. That, in the end, was every American willing and able to listen.

America received a wonderful gift today. Hillary and John and Barack can now begin again, and so can we. Any reason to count upon race or gender to divide us is past, ... or it is prologue to a political loss in the Fall, no matter whom might be elected in the end. Is it behind us then? No, ... for most assuredly it is more before us than in many, many years past. Now, we have admitted that our leg, this racist limb from the past, is gangrenous, and must be addressed. It has sickened us for far too long.

We, The American People will never view our racial differences in the same way again. That makes this a winning day for the American People indeed. What we will do next remains undiscovered. By pulling away the blood-stained sheets, and facing this sad legacy for what it was, and remains, ... we can begin again. How much of it can and should be saved, is ours to decide. It will not be simple, but it is necessary. We will not survive as a People unless we begin again at this very moment.

Thank you, Senator Obama.