Notes On The Eve Of Day One

Barack Obama was born in Hawai'i only two years after my father's generation voted for statehood, and that small fact illustrates the deep emotional cross-currents I am caught in over his inauguration.

On November 4th, when the TV pundits called the election for Obama, my two sons danced around the room in joy. Lourdes and I hugged, and then began to weep. Our boys stared. They already understand color lines, but they will never know how strange it was that we made a biracial Black man from Hawai'i the iconic face of hope and progress and change, then elected him president.

And yet Hawai'i is a conquered land, whose civil rights moment -- the moment when cultural change, social integration, and political enfranchisement converged -- came when a similar swelling of its darker-skinned classes voted in 1959 to give up their right to self-determination.

My father calls himself a pragmatist who voted for Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush twice each, but in Obama, he may have recognized the same kind of historic decision he faced as 24-year old. When he made up his mind, he didn't hesitate. My family and friends assumed I was long past the point of deciding, and I made a good show of it, but I hemmed and hawed and fussed until the end.

I finally decided that I wanted to stand with the arrival of the new majority. I wanted to join with millions in flipping a big bird to those who insisted this country was "center-right". No, I wanted to say, November 4th showed we are progressive-left. Perhaps even my father.

Still I couldn't get the words of Rosa Clemente -- the 36 year-old Green Party vice-presidential candidate who was for many of us just as much a symbol of hope and progress and change -- out of my head. "If we become the majority," she told me last summer, "then we're going to have more people like us put into these positions from really moving us towards justice."

As we look at who Obama has brought in to his administration thus far, I'm struck by the notion that perhaps even he doesn't yet recognize the transformative possibilities of the new majority that elected him.

Cornel West said last March, "I told Obama that when he wins -- which I think he will -- I will celebrate for one day, I'll breakdance in the morning and party in the afternoon. But the next day, I'll become one of his major critics."

When the flags are hoisted and that beautiful sea of hues gathers on the Mall and that biracial Black man from Hawai'i raises his hand to take an oath, call me fucking emo but I am sure I will cry again.

Onto this body of Barack Obama we have projected all possibility, and the faith that we are moving toward answers. And yet Obama also materializes the same question that has haunted people of color on American soil -- the lands of native peoples -- since long before W.E.B. Dubois articulated it over a century ago: how does it feel to still be a problem? Does our desire for hope and change and progress lead us further from the actual thought and practice of justice, or closer?

And yet if we really care about these questions, we will never have the luxury of doing nothing.

This moment will not mark the end of our struggles over questions of nation and race, nor will it mark the end of our Duboisian double consciousness. It's the beginning of something -- I'm not sure what -- but it's something that we, the new majority, must write.

This post was commissioned for the Asian Law Caucus's new blog Arc of 72, where you can read other Asian/Pacific Islander perspectives on the inauguration.

Comments

[pecospedro]

Yeah, I cried too. It was an historic occasion...the first time a majority of Americans voted a Socialist into the presidency.

[Dukedraven]

I visited Hawaii (Oahu and Maui) shortly after 9/11 with my Asian fiancee (a 9-year relationship) and I was impressed by its sheer beauty and mystical appeal. As a black American, I didn't imagine that a man from this land and of my ethnic group would be president several years later.

[capndad]

Inevitably, injustices done in the past will color our national consciousness. They are part of our history and are part of what makes us the people and the nation we are. It is part of our jobs today to acknowledge these wrongs, learn from them, and to become better for the lessons learned.

I am a family historian, and my heritage reflects the currents of change in our nation. Some of my ancestors were holders of slaves while others fought to free those slaves. Members of my family were Native Americans and others fought in the Indian Wars.

A Navajo friend who felt the pain of her people once told me she wished that all whites would just go back where they came from. I asked her which part of me goes where. Which part goes to Ireland, or Scotland, or Wales, or England, or France, or Holland, or Germany? And, what of the Native American part of me? Will that be allowed to stay?

All the parts that make up our people have lived on the be part of our national identity. Our very diversity gives me hope that the whole is and inevitably must be greater than the sum of the parts. That, I believe, is the promise that we hold out to all of the rest of the world.

[TommyMcCarthy]

Let freedom RING

[bkbigfish]

And for God's sake, man....... Quit with the "I'm going to cry" stuff already. It's embarassing.

He's just a man. And in either 4 years or 8 years, he'll be gone, replaced by another man. Get ahold of yourself.

[overd0g1]

It's just an odd remnant of racism that supposes Obama is super-human.

[spinmas]

bkbigfish, you miss the point...he I hope is a man with god in him..not Jesus but maybe walking like him and toward him..he has bronze feet and his hair is like sheeps wool..

[butters2004]

"Cornel West said last March, "I told Obama that when he wins -- which I think he will -- I will celebrate for one day, I'll breakdance in the morning and party in the afternoon. But the next day, I'll become one of his major critics."

My thoughts exactly. I trust that Obama will work towards fulfilling his campaign promises, but I also know that we the people cannot afford to be complacent with that trust. There are way too many forces in Washington that would try to push for policies that are antithetical to public good. We have to hold Obama to his words on "CHANGE"ing Washington and how politics is run. We the people have to be vigilant and CONSTRUCTIVELY critical. Lets be mindful of what he DOES, rather than what he SAYS.

[Cheesemelt]

Not intended to be controversial but you wrote of Obama that he's a "biracial Black man" which is fine, but would it also be appropriate to refer to him as a "biracial white man" in terms of etymology and his parentage?

And if not, would someone be kind enough to -- calmly -- explain why not?

[overd0g1]

A biracial man would be more accurate. But this is emotional, so I wouldn't press logic too much.

[Cheesemelt]

Biracial is an adjective that describes a person consisting of members of two races or having parents of two different races.

It does not indicate which two races.

Can anyone answer my question?

[Gainsbourg69]

Doesn't bi-racial black man seem a bit redundant to you?

[Cheesemelt]

Since one could be a biracial Chinese man, I'm not sure there's any redundancy in that.

[overd0g1]

It's not redundant, it's self contradicting.

[j0n0]

Totally....

[PlaceboStudman]

I hope beyond all realistic hope that this will mark the true beginning of the fight for civil rights of all minorities, all people, not just those of color who have been fighting for so long, but those of un in the chronically/terminally ill category, and/or LGBT, and/or Atheist/secular rationalist community whose rights were respectively questioned not long ago with the Terri Schiavo case, and are being put in the spotlight now with the Rick Warren/Gene Bishop controversy. It will not be until all people, regardless of race, age, sexual orientation or disability have our time in the spotlight that we will be able to say that this country truly is working toward unity and equality