Obama Gives Us Second Chance

Throughout 2007 and 2008, I wrote a weekly column for the Herald News in Joliet, Illinois. I'll get things started on this blog by posting a few from the archives.

Obama Gives Us Second Chance
by David Masciotra

The Herald News: November 12, 2008

For those lucky Americans who did not come of age during the soon to be bygone and already besmirched era of George W. Bush, the significance of Barack Obama's election victory will not be fully understood.

Of course, African-Americans and non-racist whites can stand in inspired and emotional awe -- merely a blink ago, in planetary history, someone sharing Obama's ethnicity and complexion would have been deemed three-fifths' human.

Even closer to our current era, he would not have been allowed to walk into a "whites only" business, smile at a white woman or appear in certain neighborhoods after the sun's setting -- much less run for president--without life-threatening consequences. For the multiplying breed of Americans who have evolved to a point of maturity where they are unable to see inferiority in blackness but see potentiality and dignity, Nov. 4 was a seismic, monumental and triumphant day.

As important as America's racial progression is, it would be unfair to President-elect Obama to isolate his race and focus on it entirely. He is a wise, cultured and compassionate workaholic of tremendous accomplishment, who is gifted with an extraordinary ability to inspire, galvanize and energize broad constituencies of formerly cynical, apathetic and indifferent people. Having expanded and enlarged the community of democracy by renewing people's interest in public affairs and faith in public officials -- he has already achieved more than his predecessor.

Hope and excitement have been in short order over the last decade, and those that came of age with Bush learned to accept disappointment, disillusionment and despair as common, natural features of American life. Citizens my age were 16 when 19 men with box-cutters brought the world's last remaining superpower to its knees by demolishing the World Trade Center, striking a hole in its military headquarters and slaughtering thousands of people. Before graduating high school the citizens would witness civil liberties -- supposedly the bedrock of American life-- be systematically stripped away and protestors demonized and intimidated into silence until disaster culminated into an unjust, unnecessary war that continues to drain America of precious life and treasure.

The next unforgettable image to beam out from the television was the Third World -- at home. Hurricane Katrina left poor people on rooftops, suffering in sports stadiums and convention centers, without food, water or public assistance. America was broken, lacking empathy and missing intelligence.

Throughout all of these horrific assaults on American ideals and promises, more and more Americans struggled to afford health care and receive a decent education. Rising inequality finally engulfed the financial system, which has now collapsed and given young Americans cause to doubt if they will enjoy the same quality of life as their parents.

Institutional failure, political mendacity and economic wreckage slipped into the background on Nov. 4, when for the first time youthful Americans found a source of hope and optimism.

This stunning transformation of public psychology indicates that America is on the cusp of something dramatic and powerful. Obama will have to more than succeed in filling the unenviable role just bestowed to him. He inherits all of the problems listed above and more yet to emerge. However, his victory has restored confidence in America, and that is something bigger than right-wingers could ever contemplate.

These hacks spoke in coded bigotry --"Who is the real Barack Obama (this black guy in our white neighborhood)?"-- and outright paranoid ignorance --"He's a socialist I tell you!"

It is not enough to solve our problems, but it may be the first step. A newly engaged citizenry willing to look beyond typical tactics of fear and deception, treading along with cautious hope, under the leadership of a steady, intelligent and eloquent figure, has the potential to reshape this country's political orientation, and revitalize its weakening spirit.

After the election of John F. Kennedy, Gore Vidal wrote that "civilizations are rarely granted a second chance."

Following the Bay of Pigs debacle and the invasion of Vietnam, Vidal mourned that "something mysteriously went wrong."

Whether something mysteriously goes wrong during Obama's administration remains to be seen, but this feels like a second chance, and right now, that feels like enough.

David Masciotra