Obama Gets Real - Now Its Our Turn

Adrienne Maree Brown

Obama Gets Real - Now Its Our Turn

So I’m at the Take Back America conference, seeing the event with the dual eyes I have been using for viewing this entire election season thus far.

At this conference (nicknamed the “progressive convention”); the passion is in people’s eyes, their
bodies aquiver with the idea of advancing progressive ideals. it’s been a while since we had a national moment of victory.

The speakers here are talking about green jobs, healthcare for all,
workers' rights, Martin Luther King - things/ideas/people I take
seriously, believe in, need. and more than ever before, the speakers
and participants here are referring to a history of nonviolent direct
action and civil disobedience, the idea of protecting our democracy
with actions that make our words mean something. so that makes me happy.

on the other hand, the talk is always far better than the action. we
are on a very fine line where people want to hear real talk about
race, for instance, but also want to see themselves as beyond racism.
yesterday obama gave the best speech i can ever remember hearing from
a politician, the kind of speech that everyone from electoral cynic to
obama fanatic had to lean into. we have waited for this kind of
speech, we have dreamed of this kind of candor about race from a
national platform.

where obama has most excited me has been in his deflection of
responsibility back towards the people. he is willing to occupy the
space of charismatic leader, but not of magician race/economy/world
fixer. in speeches like yesterday's, he is saying 'i come as an
observer, as a listener, and to channel what i see and hear - what i
hear behind closed doors as well as what i hear in town halls'.

sitting and listening i thought lovingly
of the white racists in my family, of those impacted by economic
injustice and combatting addiction and prisons in my own family, of
their proximity to each other, of the long journey we have to a point
where both sides of my family are equal, respected, evolved, free of
hate and bitterness.

sitting at this conference with people who desperately want to see
change and watching them arch and writhe with the pleasure of hearing
their own inner heart's desire for healing makes me want to open my
own heart to them. election years are so tricky this way. for a moment
people are willing to believe, to join with those of us who work day
in and day out on radically changing the status quo of gross
inequality. for a moment it feels like the momentum is there to get
the work done.

i sit over here prudish, my heart also beating faster after such a
speech, wanting to writhe and moan a bit myself, but not wanting to
give it up on the first date. i have been, we have been, so
mistreated, bamboozled, lied to and abused for so long - i want us to
have the HIGHEST standards for our next moment in history. for the
organizations, and the leaders and for the people who lead those
leaders.

it looks like this:

personally, i want to engage each and every individual i meet in this
greater process of honestly addressing and advancing racial justice.
this means the hard questions to the white folks in my life about what
they are doing to uphold racist practices, policies, patterns...how do
they benefit? this means asking the people of color in my life how do
we look at each other with mutual solidarity, making sure that no one
race or ethnicity advances at the cost of another, and that on the
most personal level we aren't waging our struggle from a space of
hatred and vengefulness, but of a greater love and greater humanity
than any of us is capable of alone. it is time for us to need each
other enough to be real with each other.

organizationally, it means that leaders and boards can no longer
simply speak to their dreams of diversity, and go so far as
tokenization in the pursuit of that dream but never a step further. it
means engaging people of color and impacted communities (impacted by
economic and environmental injustice and human rights abuses) at the
decision making level in all of our work. it means that wealthy people
and majority white organizations have to be willing to show that they
trust people of other races and class backgrounds in the key decisions
about budgets, about campaigns, and about a shared vision for the
world we want.

in leadership it means refusing the urge to oversimplify, as obama did
when he reduced the complexities of the middle east situation to mere
radical islam, instead of acknowledging that in israel, as in america,
the desire to be safe somewhere has led to colonization and
displacement that must be righted, that in israel as in america there
are people who have been placed behind walls, behind borders,
contained out of sight so that others may live. it wasn't right the
founding of America and the injustices towards Native Americans
resonate today. We have to have race solutions that actual heal,
rather than point fingers and marginalize, and we have to be most
consistent with our loving acceptance of each other in the solution
process when we have the most to lose, the most at stake, when it is
the most uncomfortable.

i am excited to be alive at this moment, when there is so much work to
be done. i am excited to take the ideas and enthusiasm back to the
streets and farmland and the coastlines and the coal-impacted
communities who are waiting for us to wake up to their needs and join
them in changing no less than the entire world.

Posted at 11:16 AM, Mar 19, 2008 in Elections | Permalink | View Comments

Comments

Well said!

I too have slowly been seduced into the audacity to have hope for this country to continue to pursue true Democracy inside these United States of America. As I continue to study, read and educate myself the tendency has unfortunately been for me to become more frustrated, discouraged and faithless that all but a small few really do want change, real change. The more I learn the more I realize that it is acceptable for some of us with the priviledge to ignore painful facts to do so as those others of us,the recipients of the facts and their consequences, fall under its snowball affect and catch as catch can.

Barak Obama's speech last Tues. was truly inspiring. I can honestly say, I have never been inspired by any political candidate; not on the local scene in New Orleans, LA nor nationally nor in any of the 7 states I've lived in. My experience has been that if a liberal is in office, I'll be able to pay for school and have a little extra cash in my pocket and the exact opposite if a conservative is in office.

Though "race", class and gender studies have opened my eyes to many of our country's defects, I have not felt truly convinced that a person such as Sen. Obama, would ever publically address the various descriptions of strata and the experiences those living them experience. Personally, I doubt he would have ever had the opportunity to write such a speech for himself had the oppositionists and media et al not been out to trip him up as is the custom of political campaigns. Detestable!!!!

In no way do I expect or did I hear Sen. Obama address every single person's experience. This of course would be a foolish expectation. But the fact that he expressed difference and defference, acknowledging the fact that every person of each "race", gender and class experiences this country in a very individual way and as a group of clusters sharing similar experiences. This he did publically on CNN and it sparked a NEEDED discussion that is almost eons overdue.

Whether one agrees with all he said or not really wasn't the point for me. It was the opening of a door of discussion of this nations birth, the defected, pre-mature creation of our Declaration of Independence as well as our incredible need to MATURE, being the young nation we are. We are here and therefore every experience whether positive or negative in the US affects us all. There is no us and them its just US.

But we are a young country in need of maturity. Maturity requires examination, admission, time, healing, more time and reflection. Maturity demands the ability to hear constructive criticism and to respond appropriately and accordingly. Excuse making is for the immature along with adages like "get over it". Any truly educated person, and I mean that whether it comes from formal education, life's experience or self-education, knows that no one can ever escape their past by simply acknowledging that it happened and that its over. HA...don't we all wish.

Maybe all Sen. Obama said could have been better said by a Sociologist or a Social Worker or a great writer/wordsmith. I could care less if the janitor of a local elementary school delivered it. What impacted me was that his hope and audacity to run for president landed him in a situation where he wrote a speech that addressed several issues affecting this nation from the richest to the poorest on a daily basis. Either one reinforces the priviledge of living a life where racial, economic and gender injustice is not experienced or one's hope is attacked and beat over the head with constant bombardment, the matrix of oppression.

What's deciving is no matter if you live life in the "right complexion" or if you can pay the "price" you are affected. Racism affects all people, sexism, agism, ablisma and classism as well. There is no escaping the complications of the birth of this nation. I plan on fighting for equal justice. I HOPE I'm not alone.

TheaB

I heard about the Obama speech on race and the attacks on Rev. Wright which provoked him to make it through my email subscriptions to arc and to tompaine.com. I loved Obama's speech as well. I think he was absolutely correct to identify continuing racist sentiments and bitterness as parts of the whole community/ies which must be addressed by everyone, not just leaders.

However, one thing I was sad about was that he couldn't more strongly support Rev. Wright. I looked up the YouTube bits from Rev. Wright which were supposedly so awful (according to the right wing in America). I agreed with Rev. Wright completely! Coming from Canada--that is, a close neighbour, often feeling overwhelmed by Americanism, but not strongly anti-American--I think what Rev. Wright said about 9/11 was obviously true. The ill will America has earned abroad, especially in the Middle East, has to be faced up to just as Obama noted America needs to face up to its racist "Original Sin". The awfulness of the tactics of terrorists do not bely the responsibility of America for its evil committed abroad.

We need to start dealing with colonialism as a sin--and here obviously Canada, as former "preferred child" of the "Evil Empire", the British Empire, also has to be part of it--and start to acknowledge the enormous thievery of the North/West from Africa, Asia, South America and Pacifica. In Canada, much of the best analysis comes from the Aboriginal Canadians, speaking from their own experience of dispossession in North America.

I know because of politics, Obama cannot openly support Wright's neo-X analysis of 9/11 as "chickens coming home to roost". I am heartily sorry that he cannot, because it shows how backward the mainstream political discourse still is that it cannot hear this analysis. However, the rest of us can speak up against colonialism. To permit business interests to make lopsided deals which impoverish most of the world is wrong. We need to establish a world order based on fair dealing, where all of us keep in mind our responsibility to all of our neighbours, and where no one will starve.

We need to also speak up against intimidation, like the virulent philosophy which states that to attack Israel's dealings with the Palestinians is to be anti-Semitic. It is wrong to make Palestinians pay a debt which belongs to white Europe. The holocaust is no excuse for setting up another Apartheid state, one which sets one group of Semitic peoples up against another. Rather it merely supports the original philosophy of Hitler, which was that one group of people should have the right to use and control another as if they were things and not persons.

In another words, if Obama's Hope campaign is to bear fruit beyond merely gettign a brown face into the White House (what a neat metaphor that is!), we need to not only have responsible leadership, but also brave and responsible citizenry of the world.

I feel that it is important for Americans to hear from other nations about the impact of their leadership contests--you are just too big for other countries to say nothing while you elect jerk after jerk!

Take care, Norma