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

Follow Howard A. Rodman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ivanjohnson

Comments

[lboucher]

Former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro said today that she objected to the comparison Sen. Barack Obama drew between her and his former pastor in his speech on race relations Tuesday.

“To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable,” Ferraro said today. “He gave a very good speech on race relations, but he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing hatred.”

When will this stop???

[JXB]

It will stop when the Party leadership begins leading by getting the superdelegates to declare affirmatively where they stand. Pelosi appeared to take a step in this direction recently, but a firmer and more collective step is needed.

[truesoccermom]

I am a passionate Obama supporter who thinks he can be the greatest leader of my lifetime. I am sad about the events with Pastor Wright because as much as I and other enlightened Democrats see Obama's brilliance in dealing with the issue, I fear there are many others (mainly repubs and working class dems) who are still left with the idea that Obama's "mentor" is an extremist who preaches angry sermons about blacks being victims. While I hope I am wrong in this I think the only way to reach these people (and at the same time silence the hateful right-wing witch hunt about black preachers) is for Pastor Wright to come forward (on Oprah or 60 minutes perhaps). He could explain his background and talk about his struggles as a black man during segregation. He could talk about the Christian and religious aspects of his ministry and explain how he came to know Obama. And finally, wouldn't it be wonderful if he could admit that he too was touched by Obama's speech and recognizes that his past angry rhetoric (preaching as if the country were "static") is no longer helpful and productive in the black community. He could show that Obama is now his "mentor" and demonstrate what a truly amazing leader Obama will be for this country. I think something like this would turn this whole thing around and truly further the discussion that Obama has started. I welcome your thoughts on this.

[RButler]

You're an 'enlightened Democrat'? Why? Do you use Diet Imperial Margarine Light?

[bridgeworker]

If Reverend Wright chooses to enter the public arena to share his story, I think that would be great. Of course, when Fox News had him on earlier, he was nearly crucified, as I believe he is being today. Expecting him to turn around and name Obama as his mentor, sounds to me like political theatre, and not realistic. As Obama has clearly stated, we heal each other, yes, and sometimes that takes generations of work. I think it's critical to not use this man as a pawn in this game, no matter how high the purpose might be.

If you would like to have a greater understand of Rev. Wright, I tracked down the video of the full sermon he gave this Christmas. I think it's important to not judge the man by his most inflammatory comments.

Here are the Links:
Xmas 2007, Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdfbWSJINhg

Xmas 2007, Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVeK0JDPm8Y

Xmas 2007, Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o36KBeDXJ8

Xmas 2007, Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFQAQVcn89A

What I see here is a wise, joyful and intelligent man who loves Jesus and knows how to share that love with his congregation. Gave me a whole different context on IMs too! Please share these links with everyone you know so we can help bring illumination instead of deception.

[truesoccermom]

Thank you for that. I think getting these other sides of him out will help too.

[Herrington]

Nice that you bring it up. I read Baldwin's book in 1970. I have long since lost it, and remember no passages, just the sense of it, turning my world on its edge and opeing it up for examination. One particualr thing I seem to remember was his sense that whites are drawn to the love, in and around the black community. Seems in contrast to Rev. Wright, but turn it on its side. Wright was berating yet another sinner, the U.S., as one would a child, an act of love expressed in anger.

I am no expert on African Americans. Something I do know of is American Indians, few of whom still survive. My mother's family was Cherokee and Choctaw, persecuted and 'cleansed' from the south. Genocide was the lot for other tribes. Among the things that Americans have done, those times were the most shameful. Damning America is not the exclusive right of Black Americans. And soon, if things do not change, you are going to hear a lot more of it, around the word and at home, from poor white folks too. No, not damning for the principles for which the nation is a vessel, but damning for the utter contempt the sitting government has shown for the people these last three decades.

[sherifffruitfly]

hahaha - you guys all express how proud you are of him/that speech. It makes me wonder you REALLY think that's how average Americans will take it, or if you know damn well that average Americans will idiotically be left with the Angry Black Man impression that they were meant to be left with, and you're simply *pretending* to not be aware of this so that you can be shocked (shocked!) for the 2354663365th time at how racist Americans are.

Which is it - are you lying, or are you just stupid?

(For one of the few examples of a writer who is neither, see Greenwald: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/18/obama/index.html )