The Triumph of Barack Obama
Posted November 7th, 2008by Ilan Stavans
America has become new again. The triumph of Barack Obama is proof that finally the nation has grown up. The politics of division and resentment are no longer effective. Orchestrating a flawless grassroots campaign that connects to the people, valuing each of us, appeared impossible only six months ago. But the Junior Senator from Illinois has shown that apathy can be turned into sympathy and that Washington ought not be the center of a small reptilian elite but a gravitational place for shared, representative power.
The last eight years have been a nightmare on multiple fronts: a crumbling economy that resulted from careless government oversight; two atrocious, wrongheaded wars; and an embarrassing official response to natural catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina, among other tragedies. President Obama will not get the United States out of the hole with a magic wand but at least he makes citizens feel that a leader that is honest and intelligent will be in command.
Personally, one of the deepest disasters that have taken places during the Bush Administration has to do with language. For almost a decade, the government has been at war with the English language. Our syntax, our semantic coordinates have been abused by the president and his cadre of loyalists. Listening to candidate Obama deliver his campaign speeches has allowed for a breath of fresh air. If nothing else, voters owe him for the eloquence with which he conveys his argument in English.
Obama has never used race as a weapon in his journey to the White House. Although he’s black, he doesn’t call attention to the color of his skin. This is exactly the America I look forward to: a place where race is deemphasized. What matters is not how we look but what we do and how we explain it to others. His victory is an endorsement of intelligence at a time when President George W. Bush dismissed it as needless and when the Republican Party, under the leadership of John McCain and Sarah Palin, modeled symbolic figures like Joe Six-Pack and Joe the Plumber as role models. Obama proves that a fine education is crucial in the making of a leader. And that the best leader is a person of exceptional talent.
My fear now is that the outcome of the general election is being portrayed by the media and political pundits as a fresh start for African Americans. It is far more than that: Obama’s ascendancy recognized, once and for all, that a young, savvy, multicultural America is now in place and that it matters that we’re white, black, Latino, Asian, or Native American, but it matters more that we’re all Americans.
