The Perpetual Achievement of the Impossible
When I was fourteen -- the same age as my own son is now -- I came across, or, more likely, was given, a copy of James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. I was in my black turtleneck phase, taking each Friday the E train to bohemia (West Village branch), so the book was a natural. I remember the cover; I remember what it said (or what, at fourteen, I thought it said); but most of all, I remembered the cool and elegant restraint of the voice. The subject was fire, but the tone was ice: Miles Davis with a Harmon mute. It cut through everything else I'd read about race -- And for all its condemnation, it is was of the very few books I'd in my then-young life read that, in the moment I turned the pages, gave me faith.
More, for a young man raised in a house where the conversation was about the Rosenbergs and the blacklist and lynchings and Jim Crow, you'll forgive if I tell you that this book led me to understand, for perhaps the first time, how I might be proud to be an American.
If we, and now I mean the relatively conscious blacks and relatively conscious whites who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others--do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country.
It was perhaps only by a writer as bleak and unsparing as Baldwin that I could allow myself to be led into faith.
I know that what I am asking is impossible. But in our time, as in every time, the impossible is the least that one can demand--and one is, after all, emboldened by the spectacle of human history in general, and American Negro history in particular, for it testifies to nothing less than the perpetual achievement of the impossible.
Those were words which changed my life; they were also words I hadn't thought about in perhaps 45 years. But this week, viewing and the reading and then reading again Barack Obama on race and faith and class in our Republic, those words cut through once again -- in fine and astonishing sync with Obama's own achievement of the impossible.
Optimism has in recent years become cheapened, desecrated by the cakewalk-and-mission-accomplished crowd; perhaps without fully realizing I'd done so, I had gone the other way. (It is far easier, at times, to have no hope.)
Obama reminded me that it is by a fierce and demanding honesty -- and perhaps only by such honesty -- that optimism can be earned. It's an honesty which looks unflinchingly at the flaws of others, the flaws of ourselves. But once found, that honesty, that optimism, can transform a nation.
And must.
The first section of The Fire Next Time is an open letter written to Baldwin's fourteen-year-old nephew and namesake.
And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieve an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off.
I look forward, tonight, to showing my fourteen-year-old son the YouTube of Obama's speech. My hope would be that it would cut through, the way The Fire Next Time did for me. My hope is that it would make him proud of his country.
My real hope, though, is larger: that we as a nation can come to be deserving of the leadership - -at once practical and visionary, unsparing and sanguine--that Barack Obama has this week offered up.
Read more HuffPost coverage and reaction to Obama's speech
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So women should feel guilty for being wary of men they see on the street if they happen to be black? Women end up dead because they are too trusting and they are afraid to be impolite.
No woman needs to apologize for being afraid of any man.
Is this sexism or feminism?
Senator Obama you have seduced the American people into soul-searching and we don't like it. Aren't times hard enough in America right now. We need the Easter Bunny more than ever but you spoil it all by offering us the bitter herbs and the intersecting beams of truth. We want Hillary Give us Hillary. She knows the way out out. She knows the great escape. If we're gonna be lost, let's be lost in familiar places with Hillary as usual.
Oh! damn it Senator Obama. We cann't live with you and we cann't live without you.
How come the MSM doesn’t show Wright's sermons in its entirety?
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Thanks, it was great to hear the speech in its context. I got so caught up in the sound bites and the reactions to the 30 second clips that I never bothered to listen to them for myself. Thanks again
Howard:
Wow - thank you for writing this.
Unfortunately, some responses I saw here and in other blogs indicate that there are many people who are not listening to the message. They react in a way best summed up by someone a bit less eloquent than Baldwin but no less pithy, Fran Lebowitz. In 1981 she wrote "The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting."
Thanks.
Me? I'm more offended by the "Goddamn the Whole World" end-times politics that permeates right-wing politics and religion than the occassional "Goddamn America" for this or that thing our leaders did or didn't do.
If we want to worry about hate, prioritize. The hate against the entire world promoted by evangelicals and their politicians is numero uno. And Hillary is connected to that through The Family, a heirarchical fundamentalist network of prayer groups that use participation as capital for political power and right-wing religious action.
They've searched 20 years of tapes for a few minutes of angry diatribes. They can find that much every week in the words of Dobson, Robertson, Hagee et al against the communities and organizations they revile.
Let's get real.
Obama made a good speech. I will not throw away that for anyone.
It is his strength, producing strong speeches. I will not try to taint this strength, but rather to point out that beyond his speech I am not too sure of what he can actually do. Not because he is not smart enough, but because in a time of national crisis, I want someone who can actually do what we need.
Someone has been around. Obama doesn not understand what he does not know.
I have never disliked the man. I never thought as his color while summing him up as a candidate. Yes, I never had. The Wright thing did make me think about what Obama was thinking. He had a chance to do this before it came out. Wright was on his campaign. But, that is not what happened, is it.
When someone loudly protest's and points the finger at someone else for not using good judgement, then it turns on that person, the finger pointer. It is clear to me that is not substance.
I believe Obama when he says he wants to talk about race. But, I dont' believe that he is ready for the job at this time when we have so many problems.
Obama bring things up like race. There are many discriminating factors, one is gender. How dare I say such a thing! Right?
Think about what you are saying....
So the most important thing a President must do is lead...lea
He has to meet with leaders around the world. He has to, well, speak to them.
The ability to lead and inspire...
Nothing against Hillary, but I have to laugh when she mocks Obama for "just speeches".
"He had a chance to do this before it came out. Wright was on his campaign. But, that is not what happened, is it."
I guess I've got it in different perspective. They've scoured 10, 20 years of tapes and found a few minutes of mania, mania which Obama didn't even witness. With what we know, any other controversial remarks were few and far between.
That an old black guy might actually have moments when he buys into a conspiracy theory, racial or otherwise (let's not forget the experiments, etc., that did happen), is not so startling or offensive. That he might see "violence begets violence" blowback involved in 9/11 is not so startling or offensive, except perhaps to those who believe US hegemony continues to be a form of manifest destiny. The occasional "Goddamn America" is not nearly so offensive or disconcerting to me than persistent, powerful hate speech from evangelicals and the end-times politics that exists in DC and treats our nation as a Biblical pawn. That IS real, and Hillary is connected to that through The Family.
Let's maintain perspective about Wright. As HRC likes to say, let's get real.
Also, Obama's approach helps underscore the fact that, contrary to what HRC and the right-wing are saying, HIS references to race have always been reactionary. He has tried to campaign without race. Every reference to it is in direct response to something from HRC &/or the media.
That's a very sweet article. And I'm glad that speech moved you so.
I'm for Hillary, but I think the race this year has been between two very fierce competitors. I never thought his race was an issue. I do think his roots with Wright explains the odd feeling I have about him. I'm not comfortable with him as the nominee.
But I do think it's been a very exciting election.
You say that you never thought his race was an issue. I do not know what country you inhabit but race is and always has been an issue in this country. Hillary Clinton and the other hack politicians who came before us know that race is an issue in this country. They are too cowardly to ever confront it. The failure to confront what has always been the great divide in this nation will never allow us to change this country in any meaningful way.
So, good luck with Hillary Clinton. If you are happy with the way things are in the United States today, then Hillary will make a good president for you.
If you are a thinking person and want the U.S. to have the oppurtunity to become the nation it should and could be but has never been, then vote for Barack Obama.
The candidates in this race other than Barack Obama are the usual, standard, assembly line hacks we have had; some better than others but none with the capacity for real leadership.
If you want real leadership and change in this county, Barack Obama is the only candidate capable of making that happen.
It's your choice.
There comes a point at which one must realize there are very limited choices in electing a president. We choose between two or three flawed people. The more we check them out the more flawed they look. In this, the YouTube election, a connection with anything perceived to be over the top results in death by a thousand hits. It takes real courage to face people and ask them to vote for you. To face the perpetual gauntlet of public opinion day in and day out, you have to be a gambler. But America is a nation of gamblers, and so we are going to elect somone who bets at the highest level. The chances of that person being "normal" are pretty low.
Obama suffers as white people suddenly realize he is not just black, but part of a black community. Race and emotion = tipping point. Creep factor seeping in. People react, "This is getting too uncomfortable, I'm outa here - you folks figure this out, I don't wanna hear about it. Back to you in August." Folks are voiding on the overload. Everything shifts. The takedown begins. Obama has to battle his shadow, made for him in part by Fox news and the Clintons, but also by the shadow of a soundbite, his own pastor, and by all the freaky guilt-associated fears of white people who were ready to take a chance, but only if he was truly Christ-like and super human. But, hey, now we know he's a black man, and well..... we KNOW the Clintons, we KNOW McCain, and we know pretty much what they'll do, because they're just like us...white
Holy Reality larstein, I think you've got it! Doesn't mean we can't transcend those fears though. It's just a very tall order.
You should not presume to speak for white people. I am white. I think I know what to expect from Clinton and McCain. It scares me. Obama is smarter and more rational than the two of them combined. (At times they seem to be combined.) I am more than prepared to take my chances with Obama.
Thank you for such a great piece. It is a moving piece and in fact, a great reaction to obama's masterpiece. I watched Obama take control of our nation and steadily guide it through a mighty, raging storm that threatened to sink us all. He asked us to believe in him and in our own abilities. We did and boy, what a great feeling!!!! I am grateful that this great man is leading us at this point in our history.
gush all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that a privileged and educated man with two ivy league degrees thought it was appropriate to make Reverend "America Created the AIDS Virus" a role model for his two young duaghters, and tried to lie about his knowledge of said reverend's rhetoric until he saw he couldn't get away with it. moreover, some of the remarks in this "historic" speech are almost verbatim taken from indignant remarks made a couple of days earlier in defense of Wright by the pastor who has replaced Wright. The church folks sent the Senator an unmistakable message that he would not be able to shed the Reverend without paying a price, and he acted accordingly. the material in his speech about the history and current state of race relations in this country is indeed laudable, but does not address the issue at hand. and his not one, but two attempts to equate the Reverend with Geraldine Ferraro are pathetic. most Americans still have not gotten a load of the tenets of "black liberation theology" yet. when that hits the fan.....Ka
How is Obama "privileged?" I've heard him accused of alot of things, but not that. Being raised by a single mother, and later, by your grandparents while your mother is in Indonesia fighting for the poor, that hardly sounds like the life of "privilege" that most of our politicians have read.
Reverend Wright is such a well-respected theologian that he has been invited to dine with presidents and has spoken at some of the finest religious institutions in the country. To judge the man based on a few out of context sound bites is foolish.
Obama never lied about knowing of Wright's incendiary comments. He spoke frankly about those comments a year ago when the media brought them up. Obama should not be dismissed because his spiritual mentor is a less than perfect man.
Educated, yes; privileged, no - unless you consider being raised by a single working (white) mom in Hawaii and in Indonesia and then by his (again, white) grandparents, a privilege. Sounds like they were good people, but wealthy, no. And that is really besides the point. This rush to judgment is what disturbs me. I find it amazing that all of a sudden Fox News and friends has become the arbiter of truth. Well, the 30sec tape, looped over and over and over, showed it, so that's good enough for me. Really?
I find it especially remarkable that all this uproar concerns a pastor of a Christian church - isn't that where Jesus taught 'judge not lest ye be judged'? Seems to me that there is a heck of alot of evidence available right now to show that we are not doing such a great job with that teaching. If you want to get a sense of what Rev. Wright is really about, check out his full sermon. The links can be found down the page here.
YOU WROTE: "My real hope, though, is larger: that we as a nation can come to be deserving of the leadership - -at once practical and visionary, unsparing and sanguine--that Barack Obama has this week offered up."
You are so "point on". I have been waiting for almost 50 years, for a presidential candidate like Obama. Just as the 14 year old in your story, I was 16 years old when Kennedy's campaign "seared me".
We citizen's have a real responsibility to act now to throw off the politics of division, the politics of personal destruction, the politics of fear, the politics of the idealog, and our cynicism in a political process grown from many long years of terrible political leadership. Just because our current presidents most outstanding achievement in college was to be a cheerleader does not warrant that we citizens give up all hope that the political system will ever improve.
No, No, No. We must recognize and seize the real opportunity that Barak Obama's presidential candicacy presents to elevate and bring our political processes up to the level that this great country deserves and must have. Let me repeat - the level we must have.
We must, we must, we must prevail over the mass cynicism, stupidity, and bunker mentality that we see every day posted on the internet. Let us start and resolve to begin thinking with our minds instead of our glands. Let us resolve to think about the common good of all citizens in the UNITED States of America. Let us unite together to obtain the political system that makes good decisions for all of us rather than decisions that divide us, bankrupt us, and lower our standard of living.
After all it is our lives. It is about us, the citizen, not the clutching, grasping, all about them people who would call themselves our leaders but deserve instead to be in prison.
Thank you for this article. I wish people would get over their ignorance and rejudice and see what Obama is trying to do for this country. No he's not perfect none of us are,but like all of us(rational people) he's trying to do better.
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Thank you for this article. I look forward to reading The Fire Next Time.
As for what's happening in this campaign, I have gone from feeling better about my country than I've ever felt in my life (after watching Obama's speech on Tuesday), to feeling more depressed and disillusioned than ever before (after reading three days of mindless knee-jerk criticism for insignificant mistakes Obama has made in this campaign). On Tuesday I had no doubt that Americans would see that speech for the bold, brilliant, exceptional thing it was. I now sit in disbelief at our selfish and self-righteous capacity to reject true greatness. After years dying of thirst in a political wasteland, we are dumping out the canteen that could save us because we notice it's 1/10 empty-- not 9/10 full.
What does it say about us as a people that we cannot allow ourselves to be impressed by the historic and unprecedented things Obama has already done? Is this the way most people reacted to Lincoln in 1863 or MLK in 1963? How absurd is it that so many are condemning Obama simply because he cannot live up to the impossible standard of perfection that has been set for him? Must he actually BE the messiah to avoid being crucified?
We ask that our leaders be superhuman, and when those leaders inevitably fail, we use that failure to justify our apathy and negativity. Never mind that Obama has blown away the standards set for every other American politician in modern history. Never mind that Hillary and McCain would fall laughably short when faced with the same expectations. No, with each achievement he makes, we callously raise the bar higher and higher. Like the father who's love for his son is contingent upon perfection, it's as if we NEED Obama to fail. We NEED to dismiss him as being overhyped or phony; otherwise his brilliant light might shine on our own shortcomings and imperfections.
If Obama is ultimately rejected, it will be because he made one mistake of real significance--he overestimated the American people. Every mainstream candidate for the last half century has told us we're all perfect just the way we are. We're told that everything we do is a sign of true patriotism and American values, and that the only people who need to change are the ones in the other Party (or those in other countries). The idea of sacrifice or social responsibility on our part has been so minimized that in our last moment of national crisis, the only thing we were asked to do was "go shopping". Supposedly, consumption is the only value we Americans share.
Obama has made an audacious break with that type of skepticism. He has spoken to us like adults. He has dared to think that true leadership means encouraging self-reflection and self-criticism, and he has asked us to be something better-- to be, in the words of the Founding Fathers, "a more perfect union".
If he loses now, it will not be from his failures or shortcomings, but from our own.
Ahhh yes, so true.
A quote that I read the other day:
History will write the Obama campaign as classic. It's a miracle someone like Obama would even want to be president. You can't help but smile. The cynics are smiling! Even some of the Republicans are smiling. While HRC insists that she can punch back, the majority of Americans don't want to fight anymore, they want to smile. Wrong era Hillary!
The only question is how ugly and desperate can Hillary make this while the press hovers like
vultures.
I just have to say, lmgoodwi, that you just spoke so much truth here right now, it hurts. I feel almost as if not only Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama, but America itself is on the cross right now. And the angry mob is circling, calling for blood.
What in the world is going on here? I know that our country is at a crossroads right now, with a hemorrhaging economy, an endless unnecessary war, a broken media, schools that are not keeping up, a tattered health care system, jobs rapidly leaving the country, a government without a backbone, an earth rapidly warming, soaring gas prices, to name a few problems, but what do we do? We shoot down the candidate who is willing to stand in this mess, and clear a path through it, with integrity, intelligence and a strong inner calm. We say, thanks, but no thanks, but we don't really trust you.
Listen, all you Clinton supporters. It is one thing to support your candidate because you feel they'll do the best job. That is fine, in fact, we expect nothing less. But to play to people's fears like this, well, probably to some of your own fears, as well. To resort to distortions and fabrications - this is no way to get this country back on the path of a transparent government, once again restored to serving the people and restoring our standing in the world. Not at all. It is destructive, both to the Democratic party and to America and its citizens. Its downright depressing. We can do so much better, but each of us has to make that choice. I'm not asking everyone to support Barack Obama, although I do think he is the best candidate. I'm just asking folks to return to a civility that can be the foundation of our discourse. Otherwise, the process will rule the outcome, and that ain't pretty.
Ahh, someone noticed.
I'mgoodwi, thanks for the astonishingly intelligent post -- more so than anything I've seen on cable news.
What we need is to go back to square one and re-marshal the same energy that lifted the Obama campaign off the ground in the first place and lift it back up onto the tracks. We astonished the mainstream press once; we can do so again with a simple choruse of, "We will not let our hope go silently into the night!"
I too am depressed for the same reason you are. It's as though the nation is full of people who never lived at a time when MLK and Bobby Kennedy were giveing speeches and offering hope. It's like if political pundit lit into MLK's "I Have a Dream" for his reverse racism in saying, "But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
This thread is one of the more lucid ones I've found on the subject, and although I am disheartened, I can still see a way that Obama can make it to the presidency. If he can hold off Hillary, then he will have earned time to show the masses who he is, and who he isn't. I would like to add that, here in these comments, which I often I have to remind myself, have real people behind them, I find strength in knowing that there are so many that are thinking, feeling, and responding the same way I do. Thank you.
That is a really great directive, "that we as a nation come to be deserving of the leadership
Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
~St Francis of Assisi~
Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful post. The Fire Next Time is one of the most powerful and transcendent books I have ever read. I discovered it accidentally and was profoundly affected by it.
I believe we have an opportunity in Barack Obama to move beyond what separates us. I have never felt this way about a Presidential candidate. I would be proud to call him my President.
I heard his speech live. It sounded like a term paper in a Community College class.
Says a lot about the state of our public discourse doesn't it. I'm sure he did better at Harvard Law Review, but hey, maybe he is just an equal opportunity Constitutional Scholar.
Howard A. Rodman.... (You said) "Obama reminded me that only by a fierce and demanding honesty -- and perhaps only by that honesty -- can optimism be earned. "
Then Obama ( In my Opinion) FAILS your "Honesty" qualificat
Obama originally claimed he was not present during his Ministers bashing of "whites" and America, etc... Barack, LIES...
Obama: "I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely
Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely " just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
Reverend Wright is by Obama's choice the advisor of his "Spirit"..
RUSSERT: When we talked back in November of "04, after your election, I said, "There's been enormous speculation about your political future. Will you serve your full six-year term as a United States senator from Illinois?"
Obama: "Absolutel
OMG...
Obama, LIES!
No! NO! NoooooOOO! Say it isn't so...
Plus, frankly, Obama's throwing his Grandmother "under the Bus" for His Political gain, I find very "convenient" ( if true) and very distasteful even if it was true... Such a well used stereotype fear... Barack about his Grandma, "a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." I find that statement very "convenient" ( if true) and very distasteful, even if it was true...
Yeah, whatever you do, don't tell the truth about your grandma, since she was WHITE.
Religion is separated from government for a reason. And, you have the words and the intent wrong on what Obama said about his Minister.
I don't know what all of your reasons are for trying to put down the most remarkable man willing to become POTUS in my lifetime, but I cannot idly stand by and let you make ignorant statements about him.
Thank you for the personal, uplifting article, Mr. Rodman. I hope that your aricle reminds others of the idealism that is possible in our psyches, and that those who are close-minded will at least feel a twinge that there is something they are missing in their awareness.
indie17 ... (YOU said ) "Yeah, whatever you do, don't tell the truth about your grandma, since she was WHITE."
NOT the point, "spin"die1
Besides, that does not alter my main point that Obama LIES!
There is NO grey area in the answer to Russert, taken from the Transcript
Obama, whether you like him anyway, or NOT, LIES!
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