The Crow Bar and the Thread: Obama's Moment of History

[ignatzmouse]

Defining moments of history are elusive and fleeting. They come upon us rarely, seemingly by accident, tragedy, or at turning points of national identity that threaten the democratic republic. Barack Obama was presented with the weight of a national moment, a moment pivoting on the very differences that thread through him, and he began to sew.

The screaming noise machine pried open the can on black anger and gave the country an ugly look inside. They tried to pour someone else's words out of that can into Obama's mouth and tried to snuff out a movement by using his own loyalty and respect for a person who is flawed and yet was an important, formative presence in his life. The Green Mile tactic. Kill them with their love for each other.

I don't excuse the Reverend's despicable words, and in the long run I think Obama would have been better served by not only rejecting them but also by framing them with his own anger at their content, but still his speech found a way to take ownership of destiny, to step up to the moment. I believe Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.

Obama's response was not to try to tamp the lid back down. It was to take both cans off the shelf, black anger and white resentment, and open them both, to look at them not like a tattling, taunting child, but to address them as an adult. He spoke to our racial divide directly and honestly, something that attempted to shine a light not with oratorical rhetoric but with personal resonance. Outside of the propaganda mill, now relegated to a cackle of whiny children, it is this quiet personal testimony that will carry his speech into American history. Those words will now resonate as the basis for dialog, for moving beyond grievances, and for carrying this nation toward a point where we are Americans and know what that means.

"Not this time," Obama concluded. The statement awakens a national call within us, the sense of a moment that was once so preciously before us and yet escaped, buried by forces of political expediency and contempt. In the days after 9-11, tragedy shed our divisions and for a brief moment we were one nation. From that rubble, the moment came and opportunity fell to George W. Bush to wed social justice and unity with national purpose. Instead, he used it like a crow bar and placed it in the hands of those who only see opportunity by division, in turning the nation against herself. The moment fell dormant again, festering an ever deeper wound.

Nearly eight years later, the dividers used the same crow bar to strike Barack Obama over the head as he spoke to a broken nation of shared goal. They struck as his own story was becoming a thread to sew our wounds and awaken a new patriotism based not on slogans but on citizenship.

Barack Obama took that crow bar like a baton and held it up before us as an object lesson. He made the crow bar itself our missed opportunity, a calling unfulfilled. His words will resonate because they touch that long empty space within us that has been riven further apart by opportunists of fear and resentment, no matter the side. Not this time. Let the Hannity's and the Coulter's and the Limbaugh's crawl back in their manipulative holes and whine to themselves. The nation is growing up. God bless us.

[Scurrilous]

1. Great post!

K & R :thumbsup:

[opihimoimoi]

2. K&R great.....love it....better Obama than them Red dudes....who have succeeded in fuckin America

[Whisp]

3. what a fantastic read. thanks. nt

[FrenchieCat]

4. Look....I can't keep crying like this. I'm really too grown up of this!

:cry:

[John Q. Citizen]

5. Great piece. Send it to a newspaper.

[Usrename]

6. There you go!

Bravo!

[mythyc]

7. K&R! great post and thanks for sharing.

:thumbsup:

[MadLinguist]

8. Damn! I haven't seen you here in a long time, Ignatz.

I thought you had given up on this place, as so many thoughtful posters have. I rarely have anything to say either, but I been hanging around for the occasional insight for a long time. I hope you are right about the growth of the nation. I agree with you that Obama rose to the occasion here and produced about the best that could be expected given the state of the electorate, and the corroded nature of public discourse in these not very united states. I fervently hope he can continue to speak inside of the rifts that define and divide us.

[ignatzmouse]

9. Thank you!

I feel a bit sheepish about the paucity of posts, but my heart is with you guys.

I was an Edwards supporter until he withdrew. But here's the thing with Obama. We have been so long without this rare kind of leader who can catalyze the nation with clarity, who was born to it, and we have become so jaded. It's hard to believe that our time will ever again be a time for greatness. We get filters and actors and charlatans. It has gone on so long and has been so debilitating as the manipulators box us in time and time again that a groundswell has emerged to breach the dam on the national soul.

I do worry that Obama has not produced an emotional reaction to the GD America diatribe because the reverend's endlessly repeated sound bite needs to be countered with something equally emotional -- a great segment of the public experiences the comments emotionally, and they cut to the quick of Obama's new patriotism of diversity as strength. Obama doesn't have to throw his mentor to the wolves, but he does need to punctuate the content of the statement.

Yes, Obama has flaws. But every great man, every great American, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, King, has had their flaws. I sense that the nation is ready to put aside the rancor and ascend to a better era. We face a time where we need someone of voice and vision, someone who can take those battered divisive parts of ourselves and put them back in the hands of liberty. Barack Obama is that man, and we must allow ourselves to ascend to it.