A Whisper of Hope

[dedalus_1947]

Change will not come if we wait
for some other person or some other time.
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
We are the change that we seek.
We are the hope of those boys who have little;
who've been told that they cannot have what they dream;
that they cannot be what they imagine.

Yes they can.

We are the hope of the father
who goes to work before dawn and lies awake
with doubts that tell him he cannot give his children
the same opportunities that someone gave him.

Yes he can.

We are the hope of the woman
who hears that her city will not be rebuilt;
that she cannot reclaim the life
that was swept away in a terrible storm.

Yes she can.

We are the hope of the future;
the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided;
that we cannot come together;
that we cannot remake this world as it should be.

Because we know what we have seen
and what we believe –
that what began as a whisper has now swelled
to a chorus that cannot be ignored;
that will not be deterred;
that will ring out across this land
as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world,
and make this time different than all the rest.

Yes. We. Can.

(“Yes We Can”- Barack Obama, New Hampshire, January 9, 2008)

Civilians assume that students go home at the end of a school day, and that school campuses, in the twilight hours, are quiet, solitary places. I’ve come to see these ideas as the skewed memories of harried adults and impatient parents, because middle school children are naturally riotous and noisy, and they tend to gather and loiter around school grounds for many reasons; when parents forget to pick them up (which happens often), when they have practices or rehearsals, or when they become interested in someone, or something, other than themselves. I always see two or four students sitting, playing, or talking to each other around the front entrance of the school, or the inner quad area, when I leave my office at 4:30 or 5 o’clock. I’ve come to expect it. So, I was surprised at the barrenness of the grounds on January 3, 2008. As I closed and checked the lock of the front door entrance to the school, the only sounds I heard were the echoes of my footsteps along the covered walkway to the parking lot. It was Thursday of New Year’s Day week, two days after our return from Winter Break. Perhaps the students were still numb from returning to school, or they were making it a point to hurry home and rendezvous with friends or relatives who were still enjoying the Christmas vacation of traditional calendar schools (MASH Middle School is a year-round, multi-track school) that was still in progress. Whatever the reason, the campus was remarkably still and hushed that evening, as though it was anticipating some whispered revelation.

 As I drove out of the empty parking lot, I turned on the car radio to dispel my growing sense of solitude. Blues on KJAZZ wouldn’t help, so I tuned to National Public Radio (NPR) on KPCC, and listened to All Things Considered. I was hoping to avoid any depressing war news from Iraq, or hearing another report on the rising cost of gasoline. As it turned out, the lead story was the Iowa Caucuses that were just ending in that state, and news that the projected winners would be announced soon. I had forgotten. I’d been lulled into somnambulance by the incessant campaigning that occurred during autumn and winter. I’d become anesthetized to seeing and hearing the candidates speak, and listening to “expert” analysis by commentators and pundits (handicappers). I’d almost forgotten that ordinary people made the final decision in caucuses and primaries by choosing and voting. The radio made me immediately curious about the outcome of this first contest of the season. I have been a Democrat since college, and Kathy is remarkably unaffiliated to any party . We had listened to the early Democratic and Republican debates, but were far from having favorites, or being close to a choice.

I believed that Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama, on the Democratic side, and Mitt Romney and John McCain, on the Republican, were the most viable contenders. Of them all, I was most intrigued by Obama, who seemed the least likely. He first caught my attention at the Democratic Convention in 2004, when he gave the keynote speech. He was fresh, articulate, and engaging. The speech left me feeling a strong connection with the man, and a sense of mutual experiences. His parent was an immigrant to America, who had married a citizen. He was biracial, and an ethnic minority who had struggled to achieve the American Dream. He was committed to social justice, with the belief that it was the duty and responsibility of government to protect and serve the American people. But he was also incredibly young, idealistic, and inexperienced. Along with my curiosity about Obama, I also felt a nagging certainty that no Democratic candidates could really contend with the experience, organization, financial support, and devoted commitment of the Clinton campaign. Hillary was the clear front-runner, the battle-hardened veteran, who had been positioning herself as the preeminent, unbeatable, centrist candidate for the last three years. Obama was the “darkest horse” in the contest.

The first salvo of political preference in the family came from my daughter. I learned in December that Prisa (see tag, Prisa) was working on the Obama campaign in California. She and her roommate Maria had volunteered as precinct workers to call, canvass, and disseminate information on Obama. I was pleased with her activism. Over the years, Tony and Prisa had developed steadily stronger opinions on social, economic, and political issues, but they had never worked for any particular political candidate. Prisa was the one to cross the line from theory and talk to practice. She was committing to one candidate, and backing it up with action. I was especially proud of the fact that she was circumspect in her support, and had not been proselytizing for Obama among family or friends.

We have always lived in a social environment of family and friends who represented every position on the political spectrum, from archconservative to extreme liberal (in some cases it was hard to tell the extremists apart). This situation pre-existed in my Mexican families before our marriage, and with Kathy’s Irish-American family after our vows. Given our ethnic roots, one would have assumed a predominant Democratic and liberal bias, but actually the opposite was true. The patriarchs and matriarchs of our families were serious right-wing Republicans and royalists. When raised in such a politically diverse family environment, tolerance, acceptance, and humor is vital. Kathy is especially adept at navigating the tricky reefs and shoals of political and religious discussions among her family and friends. She listens to what people are saying (not simply waiting for an opportunity to talk), and always looks for the common threads of agreement in issues and beliefs. Kathy has a fine sense of humor, an instinct for the absurd, and the ability to guide people away from the dangers of taking themselves too seriously. Prisa inherited many of these skills. Until she admitted working on his campaign, I hadn’t suspected that she was a believer in Obama’s movement. When pressed for information about her candidate, Prisa would direct questioners to various sources, blogs, newspaper articles, and website links, but she would not bore you with evangelizing talk.

By the time I arrived home, NPR was projecting Mike Huckabee as the surprise winner of the Republican Iowa Caucus. Based on exit polls, they were showing that Huckabee had managed to defeat all the front runners, by taking about 34% of the vote, as compared with 25% for Romney, and 13% for McCain. The primary season had begun with a bang, and a resounding upset. I gathered the L.A Times, fixed myself a scotch, and settled into my favorite corner of the sofa to watch CNN, while reading the newspaper. I had no clue how long it would take for a projected Democratic winner to be announced, so I made myself comfortable listening to the drone of talking heads on T.V. A half hour later, the Big Bang occurred, and Obama was projected the winner of the Iowa caucuses. The sky had fallen in over Iowa.

In shocked silence, I sat listening to the analysis of this paradigm-shifting news. In this white, Middle American bastion of citizenry, an African-American had cleared the field. A black male was the people’s choice – the white people’s choice. I couldn’t believe it. With early precincts reporting, CNN was projecting that Obama would capture 38% of voters, compared to 30% for Edwards, and 29% for Hillary Clinton. Looking at the numbers, it also appeared that Obama was taking 57% of the under-30 vote, and over 50% of college educated voters. Bill Schnieder, the CNN political expert, was saying that “The numbers tell us this was a debate between change and experience, and change won”.

The staggering significance of these results didn’t really hit me until the news coverage shifted to Obama Headquarters to televise his victory speech. There I saw a tall, slender, and clean-cut African-American, in a trim dark suit, standing in front of a wall of white faces, sprinkled with a few black and brown ones. Floating in this sea of beaming smiles, I could see a spattering of bobbing blue signs, proclaiming OBAMA, CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN, CHANGE, and HOPE. The visual effect was breathtaking. Then Barack Obama spoke:

“You know”, he began, “they said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided; too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose. But on this January night - at this defining moment in history - you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do… You have done what America can do in this New Year, 2008… you came together as Democrats, Republicans and Independents to stand up and say that we are one nation; we are one people; and our time for change has come.

“You said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that's consumed Washington; to end the political strategy that's been all about division and instead make it about addition - to build a coalition for change that stretches through Red States and Blue States... We are choosing hope over fear. We're choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America…”

The images I was seeing on TV, and the words I was hearing, were a sharp contrast to other, previously viewed images that had been burnt into my mind: contorted white faces screaming at a line of black children crossing the street to integrate a public school in Little Rock, Arkansas; uniformed sheriffs restraining leashed German Shepard dogs, and aiming fire hoses to terrify and scatter the peaceful, black demonstrators in Selma, Alabama; and pointy-hooded figures, in white gowns, gazing up at the dangling figure of a lynched black man, hanging from a tree. I could not believe that in my lifetime such a huge change in beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions had finally occurred; and I was seeing it before me.

“This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long - when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a common cause; when we finally gave Americans who'd never participated in politics a reason to stand up and to do so. This was the moment when we finally beat back the politics of fear, and doubt, and cynicism; the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up. This was the moment.

“Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment - this was the place - where America remembered what it means to hope… Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it…

“Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.

“That is what we started here in Iowa, and that is the message… that can change this country brick by brick, block by block, calloused hand by calloused hand - that together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things; because we are not a collection of Red States and Blue States, we are the United States of America; and at this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe again. Thank you, Iowa”.

I’m not sure at what time during the speech I started to feel the tears of long forgotten sorrows well up. I had no other way to express the mixture of emotions that were bubbling up inside me. Obama’s words, and his sudden transfiguration into an authentically viable presidential candidate, were tapping into forgotten wellsprings of lost innocence and bitter memories of the 60’s and 70”s: my youthful excitement at supporting the election of a young, Irish-American, Catholic president; my burning enthusiasm to join the Peace Corps and erase the image of the “Ugly American”; my naïve trust that Martin Luther King and non-violent resistance would end segregation and assure the inalienable rights of every American citizen; and my zealous belief that by voting and supporting peace candidates, like Gene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy, the Vietnam War and the military draft would end. These youthful myths had been obliterated by the brutal reality of a murdered president, an assassinated Civil Rights leader, and a slain candidate of Hope. Segregation did not end, and the draft, the Vietnam War, and the government’s responses to the anti-war movement continued to devour its young. From the 80’s onward, Presidential politics degenerated into a business run by Madison Avenue-like consultants who packaged ideologies, directed candidates to follow focus-group developed behaviors, and ruthlessly painted their opponents as enemies of the people. I had become cynical and indifferent toward the political process and the soulless candidates the parties produced: a Watergate-sanctioning president; a president who lied, evaded, and parsed the truth; and a president chosen by justices of the Supreme Court. Yet, this night, I was watching a man who was different; he looked different, he sounded different, he delivered a different message. Obama had the audacity to state the obvious, and believe that it was true; that we are all Americans, that our country is “a city on a hill”, founded on high-minded principles and values that transcend us, and that we are only as strong and secure as our faith and trust in each other. I cleared my throat, and secretly wiped away my tears. I continued watching television for a few hours more before going to bed. A week later I asked Prisa what would be the best way to contribute to Obama’s campaign. I followed her practical advice.