With the recently hospitalized Sen. Ted Kennedy bowing out of delivering the commencement speech at Wesleyan University, his gigantic shoes were filled by none other than Barack Obama. The presidential candidate proudly filled in, delivering a stirring speech that had many graduating Wesleyan seniors overwhelmed with guilt about being secretly glad this was the year Kennedy found the tumor.

Though the event was closed to students and their families, one Wesleyan student filed this report, exclusive to 23/6.

Though I'm just a sophomore, I snuck into Barack Obama's commencement speech this weekend (stickin' it to the man since 1988!) to listen to the words of wisdom of The Great One, as he's informally known on campus.

Don't get me wrong--I dig on Barry's commitment to bureaucratic transparency, his refreshing approach to diplomacy, and his mad oratorical skills as much as the next former Kucinich supporter whose hopes were dashed early in the game. But in this campaign of firsts--first black, first female, first semi-qualified Republican (!)--I fear we may simply be reversing course and privileging novelty and change over the tried-and-true and status quo, just as Derrida would point out we have always privileged speech over text and man over Woman.

In fact, if you "deconstructed" this "race," you'd remember we already had a candidate who covered all the "first bases" in the last election: Carol Moseley Braun. Yet why didn't anyone get excited over a black female candidate? Because if you're a black woman in this country, you've already got two strikes against you (sing it, Toni M.!). As a white male who spent two weeks in Guatemala last summer and will be studying abroad in Prague next semester, I can attest to what it feels like to be the Other--and while in my case it was exhilarating to be freed from the shackles of consumerist society in an authentic, non-gentrified culture with my host family (hola, Señorita Palencia!), for the Moseley Brauns of this postcolonial world, it remains a burden. Edward Said said as much (as has his postmodern equivalent, the similarly named character of "Sayid" on ABC's "Lost," himself also adrift in a sea of Eurocentric prejudice as symbolized by the mysterious island's smoke monster).

As for the commencement speech itself, or as I call it, "campaign speech," Obama urged us to dedicate ourselves to public service. A noble sentiment, to be sure, one notably embraced by JFK--who, come to think of it, Obama reminds me of, in that he's young (Obama is 46 now, JFK was 46 when he was assassinated), "different" (Obama is black, Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic president), and hopeful (Obama's "Audacity of Hope," Kennedy's famous "ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country" speech, which is an example of the literary device of the chiasmus).

Speaking of hope, let's not forget that this word was traded on heavily by a former Arkansas governor in 1992. And I don't have to remind you what happened there. (If you don't know, I'm referring to Bill Clinton, who basically sold out all Democratic principles through the eponymous "Clintonian triangulation," and now his wife, of course, is doing the same thing, which of course, we all know is bad.)

To be honest, I wish I could report more thoroughly on the speech, but I'd just come from the Young Anarchists Club and I was a little...well, you know. In conclusion: Kucinich in '16!

Posted by: Teddy Wayne      I’m a fan of Teddy Wayne