An Account of Hope

Do I think Barack Obama is going to change Washington if he gets elected? No. Do I think he will bring America to greatness? No. Do I think that his entrance onto the national stage has a kind of power to transform race relations? Possibly.

My mother just called. She waited until she was sure I would be awake to tell me that she has been “crying all morning,” evidently still hung over from the elevation she experienced last night.

“This is one of the best experiences I’ve had in my life,” she said. “I could die tomorrow knowing I have seen this happen…I feel so glad to be alive to experience this.” Those are her words about listening to Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention. I was scribbling them down as she spoke because I sensed what was happening was big. Her voice broke into tears even in the telling.

When Martin Luther King stood in Washington and talked about his dream, my mom was not there. She was a twenty-one year old newlywed, living in an apartment in New Jersey, working at an insurance company. She probably had no idea it was happening. She is one who remembers vividly the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but little else on the national stage. She was never part of a movement, hardly even paid attention to political campaigns. Her focus was kids and caretaking. Only this past spring did we discuss how frightened she was in 1967 during the racial uprising in Newark—the worst of the devastation having occurred only a few miles from where we lived. But forty-five years, four children, six grandchildren and one day after Martin Luther King’s historic speech, my mom has been moved to heights of enthusiasm and commitment that I’ve never seen in her. And frankly, I think her hyperbole of passion may not be hyperbole at all.

As she watched Obama’s acceptance speech alone, jumping up and down, screaming, with tears running down her face, she was reacting to an image of multiculturalism that genuinely moved her, a spirit of partnership and possibility between people that captivated her—and many like her. “You have to be a stone not to feel it,” she declared this morning. And though I am more restrained in my view of the Obama phenomenon because of its foundation in a political horse race, I am still left wondering where this deep chord of hope struck in my mom—and other people like her—might actually lead us, and what these heights of emotion are saying about the relationships we aspire to create.


Laurie

What’s Happening to the Neighborhood?

Michelle Obama made history this week with her appearance at the Democratic National Convention. By sharing an intimate portrait of her life as a member of the Robinson family, her birth family, she solidified just how momentous this election is for race relations in the United States. Aside from the fact that the video montage that helped her to accomplish this was checkered with photos that did not include a single white person, those photos were essentially the same images that most every Middle American white family has in their own albums. You know the kind of photos—a little girl riding her first bike, eating an ice cream cone while it melts down her hand, hugging her elderly grandparent and smiling into the camera. One could almost hear the delight and the affection and the laughter pouring forth from the images of Michelle and her family. It was classic Americana, the “dream” unfolding right before our eyes. The Robinsons, it turns out, lived and loved one another just like millions of white families do. And Michelle even epitomized the ultimate in Americana—she watched the Brady Bunch religiously.

Why is all of this momentous? Because Americans still suffer from not really knowing one another. And because most white Americans still have no close friends or family members who are black or brown, and most have never stepped inside of a household of black or brown people. Although many will protest this characterization, it is sadly true. So we have not seen firsthand the parallels in our intimate worlds. We live like aliens in the same land. And though we might assume a modicum of commonality in our respective communities, most of us have not confirmed this for ourselves. The Cosby Family was a classic fictional attempt to make the point for us. But the Robinsons are real. The Obamas are even more real. And now, as white Americans are peering inside the intimate space of black and brown America through the unparalleled media presence of the almost-first Obama family, we are encountering the ultimate “look who’s moving into the neighborhood” moment for this country. And something novel is bound to result. In fact, this nation will never be the same if it occurs.

Even though television can only show us the surface of things in the Obama family, white America is likely to apply this new perspective to other black families living just down the street or across town or in an adjacent community. And as they do, we will all become participants in the most far-reaching “contact theory” experiment ever undertaken. Social scientists know that prejudice diminishes when the degree of contact increases between members of groups that fear or dislike or simply do not know one another. So this closer view of the Obamas—and black and brown America by extension—will surely assist in breaking down some of the barriers to affiliation, understanding, and alliance-building that still define us. How could this NOT happen? And, more importantly, where will we find ourselves as a people when it does?

Sam and Laurie