Yearning for Unity: Songs From the Choir

Just in case you've already grown weary of the kvelling over our new President-elect, please indulge me one last gush. It's been a week since the election and I have a little kvelling of my own to do.

Drawing upon excerpts from Obama's victory speech and listening to some of the other voices from the choir this past week, I see a ray of light at the end of this long, dark tunnel we've been in, not just the past eight years, but since the first slaves arrived on our shores.

Barack Obama accepted his landslide win last Tuesday, not as the conquering victor filled with hubris, but rather as a humbled, public servant. Very early in his speech he said,

"And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress."

He spoke not of vanquish, but of unity. He reached out to those who may not share his vision, for like him, his vision embraces the diversity inherent in what it means to be an American.

"And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your President, too."

He spoke of his audacity to hope that the original dream of our founding fathers, "to form a more perfect union", could still be realized 232 years after that dream became the guiding principle upon which this country was founded. He affirmed that we could still be a "government of the people, by the people and for the people" and that the definition of "the people" now truly includes those who do not look like the founding fathers.

"It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America."

I watched the election returns at the Oakland Convention Center, having spent Election Day at the Obama headquarters in Berkeley working the phones.

Among the thousands of people who gathered there to celebrate was a beautiful young man from Kenya who had come to witness history in the making. His cheeks glistening with tears, his face and spirit shining so brightly, his joy alone lit up the cavernous convention hall. But he was not alone. As he sang and danced his joy, a circle of love and pride formed around him that we might all share his and our historic moment. To cop an overused and often abused phrase, but one that seems so apt, "We were all Kenyans" in that moment.

It was a magical, transcendent "reverse Rodney King" moment. It felt like something shifted in our collective DNA. Joyous was the sight of children having their pictures taken in front of the huge screen broadcasting the Electoral College results. These kids will grow up knowing that they can become anything they set their hearts and minds to.

Barack's win is truly built on the shoulders of the American people who took the leap of faith and cast their votes for him. Without a guarantee of success, we have cast our fate in the direction of change he has laid before us. It is not now for us to stand on the sidelines with our arms crossed and say, "show me", but rather for us to stand up, step forward and participate in renewing the promise of our founding fathers.

"What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

Indeed, it will not happen without our all coming to the line and extending the promise of equality to people of all orientations. Yet the reality is, barriers remain.

HP blogger Pam Spaulding's post offers an excellent discussion of the controversy swirling around the passage of California's Proposition 8, which denies same-sex couples the right to marry. Read her post here. Also read Evan Handler's excellent post on this subject.

This is a very controversial issue and the fight for gay civil rights will continue as Prop 8 opponents take the battle to the CA. State Supreme Court. Clearly, there is more voter outreach and education to be done. Even Obama originally supported the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed in 1996 during the Clinton administration, until he was educated by the gay community of the devastating effects of this legislation on their civil rights. The champagne is still chilling and the toasts are put on hold for the gay community while this struggle continues to find resolution.

In spite of Proposition 8's passage, hope remains, as this election pointed to an enduring truth about our country:

"That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow."

"It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other."

On this note, I was struck by the following commentary from Mark Shields, political analyst on PBS' News Hour with Jim Lehrer, the day after the election:

"...There are two competing narratives in American lore. There's the sheriff of high noon standing all by himself, taking on the raid forces, or there's the wagon train, going across the prairie, facing all sorts of threats, and along that wagon train, the strong protect the weak, we don't leave the old behind, that there is an obligation of each part of it to contribute to the whole."

Some would suggest the latter narrative is a form of socialism. Think about that for a minute. Would our ancestors have made it if they had not banded together as fellow pioneers overcoming insurmountable odds to seek a better life for them selves and somewhere down the line, you and me? No matter if you're a tenth generation or first generation American or if you just arrived here, the promise of America lies in the spirit breathed into its inception by its founding fathers and may I please add, mothers.

President Franklin Roosevelt said, "Remember, the measure of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, but whether we provide enough to those who have too little."

And even our dear friend Warren Buffett, the richest man in the world, echoes the mantra when he says:

"If you're in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%".

And so our president-elect reminds us:

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there."

This then, is the rebooting of America, the resetting of our collective intention and a giant step in the direction of fulfilling our still unfulfilled promise of "a more perfect union" .

I realize many of you will have a different song to sing in this chorus, so let's have it. Please add your voice and let us hear your song and your thoughts. Or you can email me at: [e-mail].

Comments

[mmgbizgirl]

Dr. Rich,

Thanks for posting my tribute video to the new President. My hope and inspiration was renewed on that day. So was my creativity.

Wonderful post. I'm feeling invigorated!

[Dr. Judith Rich - Huffpost Blogger]

mmgbizgirl,

Thank YOU! I had no idea who created this, it just appeared in my inbox one day and I've viewed it at least 20 times. I cry every time I watch it.

Here's to more of your hope, inspiration and creativity! Keep it flowing!

All the best to you,
Judith

[Dr. Judith Rich - Huffpost Blogger]

And PS mmgbizgirl,

Please send me links to your new creations. If they're anything like this one, they'll be finding their way onto my blog and I"m sure others.

You can reach me personally at [e-mail].

Again, thanks and blessings,
Judith

[mmgbizgirl]

Of course I will.

Many Thanks,

mmgbizgirl

[Eli Davidson - Huffpost Blogger]

The depth of your generosity and caring are such a hallmark of your posts. You are a beacon of hope and our new paradigm of not me but we. T

"That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow."

"It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other."

Thank you for reminding us of the preciousness of possibility that we have the opportunity to harvest.

[Dr. Judith Rich - Huffpost Blogger]

Eli,

Listen woman, nobody says it better than you! How great to be in the company of such inspiring spirits here at the HP. I"m honored to share this space with you.

All the Best,
Judith

[frepstein]

Something is very different this time. Government is no longer outside of me. I am proud of every move and every choice he is making and I am a part of it. It is this inclusion that we all felt from him in the campaign, the genuine call to arms, not just to elect him, but to partner with him in bringing our country back to health. He cannot do this alone and we shouldn't expect him to. I know he plans to ask for our help and there is no greater time in history than now to offer him that powerful partnership.

[frepstein]

As the days pass since this monumental victory I am most touched by the responses from all around the globe. This resurgence of HOPE is not merely ours. People from every country around the world seem to be rejoicing in the same manner that we are. Not merely for us, as a country, but for the possibility that we represent for all mankind. Hope has been renewed and everyone can see new possibilities for the future.

Our choice of Obama has already begun to restore our credibility in the world. I heard one of the pundits say, "all Obama will have to do is get up in the morning and the world will hold us more favorably". Of course, that doesn't discount the enormous task in front of him and in front of all of us.

I followed the campaign very closely and in the last few months on a daily basis. This was totally new for me. I assumed that the moment it was over, especially if I felt I had gotten my job done that I would turn my attention back to other things in my life. I notice that I am still following what is happening on a daily basis. (more....)

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[Dr. Judith Rich - Huffpost Blogger]

Great, Francine!

Once bitten...... it's going to take all of us to care and stay tuned in. We can't go back to sleep for the next 4 years and expect to wake up in 2012 and have everything solved. And it's going to take reaching out to those who may not share this point of view. Interesting to see how Barack is handling the Joe Lieberman matter. Looks like he really does walk the talk.

I'm inspired!

Love,
Judith

[DragonMama]

On topic, song going through my head (aside from the ones on the Yes We Can CD - American Prayer, track 4, is my 16mo baby's favorite song and my 4yr old can sing most of it, and it still gets me choked up too) is "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield:

I break tradition
Sometimes my tries
Are outside the lines.
We've been conditioned
To not make mistakes
But I can't live that way!

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
the rest still unwritten

(FWIW, this song was played at several Obama rallies I attended)

[Dr. Judith Rich - Huffpost Blogger]

Unwritten was the theme song for my 65th birthday party and the entire year after. A potent message for these potent times.

Thanks for sharing your song in this choir!

All the best,
Judith

[brianjboyle]

Veteran/hero McCain may have resisted North Vietnamese torturers, but hadn't the courage to halt torture at Guantanamo-- what Obama now promises to end. McCain apparently never had to handle a bully, sitting down eye-to-eye, explaining with Courage and Hope why self interest dictates deescalation, letting consequences of doing otherwise be quietly but absolutely clear. Face matters as much as size.

Where was 'superior judgment' in the deregulation that turned Wall Street into a casino? McCain agreed with "Keep government out of our business" until... "Oops! We need a $700 Billion surge to undo the situation we/you got us into."

Looking Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il (or the American people) in the eye,speaking honestly but firmly, I don't think Barack Obama would come across as an angry black man. I think he would come across as having the kind of wisdom and courage that John Kennedy showed Khrushchev in October of 1962, that Franklin Roosevelt showed the nation when he proposed the New Deal to get the country back on its feet, that Abraham Lincoln showed the world when he tested "whether that nation, or any nation so conceived or so dedicated, can long endure." It is the honesty, wisdom and courage that cost those three their very lives. It is this kind of Courage and Hope we so need to exhibit, now more than ever, behind our New President of the New, Improved, Restored United States of America.

[DragonMama]

FDR wasn't assassinated, he had long-term health conditions that caught up with him (hastened by the stress of the job, surely, but he DID serve more than 3 terms in office and started out with health problems). Yes, all three died in office, but there's a reason I chose to focus more on Barack's ideological resemblance to FDR over JFK and Lincoln.

[brianjboyle]

Although ten years younger than McCain, I, too, was a naval aviator in Vietnam and there's a saying we all took to heart when launching off the flight deck: "The superior pilot is one who uses his superior judgment to keep himself out of situations requiring his superior skill." Having ditched five Navy aircraft and one loyal Navy wife, I didn"t see McCain as having either the superior skill or superior judgment we now need to pull out of this fatal flat spin, every pilot"s worst nightmare.

Even were there compelling evidence the Surge had temporarily contained ongoing sectarian violence, Bush-Rumsfeld"s hubris created not a "situation requiring superior skill" but a death spiral costing the lives of several thousand young Americans and the sanity and souls of ten times that many. Where was the "superior judgment" a Commander-in-Chief needs, ignoring the warnings of Army Chief-of-Staff, General Eric Shinseki, that "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would probably be required for post-war Iraq? It was precisely the lack of "superior judgment" that got us into that dishonestly conceived, poorly planned, poorly executed bloody morass.

It"s pointless and inappropriate to bash McCain, today or any other. What worries me is the misguided mentality of too many Americans he merely echoed when he chastised Obama's wise, courageous offer to sit down, one-on-one, with the heads of state of Iran and North Korea, "without any preconditions," to discourage their nuclear proliferation. (more)

[brianjboyle]

"The Audacity of Hope" was transformed from a phrase of the justifiably angry Jeremiah Wright into the manifesto of the man who ended that justification. When I watched the last "debate," it felt like the most crucial public political interchanges since an evening in autumn of 1960. Even as a teenager, I could see the difference between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy -- not just in style but in substance. I remember the ringing phrases from Senator Kennedy's own book, "Profiles in Courage," that echoed nearly half a century later in the words of his intellectual heir, Barack Obama. Just as Kennedy had "The Catholic Question" hanging over him --hard to believe today unless you lived through it-- Obama had the equally insidious "angry black man" label to avoid. Today, to bring unity to 50 states of mind, to respond to 300 million disparate voices, we need both Courage and Hope, we need "The Fire of Righteousness."

I don't mean the kind of utterly certain fundamentalist religious self-righteousness expressed by Jerry Falwell, or Rev. Wright or Sarah Palin or a suicide bomber on a jihad. I mean straight-up, stand-up Straight Talk that McCain's Express first promised before the RNC detoured it off the Road of Reason and onto Bullsh*t Boulevard. I mean the kind of Courage that John McCain *should* have understood " but obviously didn"t when he crowed three times "Senator Obama still won't admit that he was wrong about the surge working in Iraq!"

[brianjboyle]

Today, as a veteran of Vietnam -- an earlier Mistake of History from which we"ve not learned -- I read both Arianna Huffington"s "Historic Hope" piece and Dr. Judith Rich"s the "Yearnings for Unity" on the same great website.
Both addressed the difficulty of the tasks ahead of us as a nation, the difficulty of pulling off a "Historic Double Play," in the "Rebooting of America." And I agree with the implicit message, the unstated caveat " it"s going to take a remarkable synthesis of Courage and Hope to get us out of the Pit we"ve permitted ourselves to be dragged into. And I can"t think of better summation than the New President"s speech addressing the Democratic National Convention in 2004:

"I'm not talking about blind optimism here -- the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta, the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope." (--more--)

[Dr. Judith Rich - Huffpost Blogger]

Brian,

So beautifully, eloquently and passionately spoken. I can only say thank you for adding your exquisite voice to this choir.

God bless,
Judith

[arlynroyce]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for the Barack Obama excerpt. I can't imagine what serving in and living after any war must be like. Your heart , wisdom and courage to hope are so inspiring.

[arlynroyce]

Having cast our fate in the direction of the changes Obama has laid before us, those changes being world unity, equality and dignity and abundance for all, altruism and "the golden rule" (do unto others as you would have done unto you), we HAVE guaranteed our success. Obama has reminded us that basic human qualities like a kind heart, good intentions, good deeds and a world-embracing mentality have value - inestimable value - and we ARE powerful enough as individuals, as a nation and as a planet to heal this world. Congratulations, Judith, on this great article! I share your views and remain as excited as I was when I found out Obama will be our new President. Cheers to you, =) Arlyn

[Dr. Judith Rich - Huffpost Blogger]

Yes, and thanks to YOU for this powerful reminder that together, we can heal the world. I, too, am filled with hope and optimism that we're heading in a new direction and not naive enough to think it's going to happen by magic. But we're finally being asked to participate in the creation of this new path, so here we are, fired up and ready to go!

All the best to you, arlynroyce!
Judith