With his family by his side, Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States by Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2009. More than 5,000 men and women in uniform are providing military ceremonial support to the presidential inauguration, a tradition dating back to George Washington’s 1789 inauguration. (DoD photo by Master Sgt. Cecilio Ricardo, U.S. Air Force/Released)
Hillary Vs. Barack
In 2008 when it wasn’t Hillary vs. Bernie but Hillary vs. Barack a good friend who is African American and more than a little politically savvy told me “Barack will never win. There’s too much racism in America to elect a black man as President.”
I disagreed. I thought Obama had a chance. I was right. He’s been president now for nearly 8 years.
I recall watching his election and his victory celebrating with all of the talk about hope. Barack Obama is probably the most eloquent president of my lifetime.
It’s the answer that led those who’ve been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.
I kept thinking that the reality of a black man being elected president in this nation with its history of race based slavery is certainly something to celebrate. The other reality of our human nature sobers me on the separation between symbolism and substance.
Racism in America
The events of this week, with the two shootings by police of African American men and now the shootings of police officers as retaliation sober us all again by the realities of racism in not simply America but within our hearts.
The Harvard Implicit test which attempts to suss out racial bias deep below our conscious minds regularly demonstrates how our formation defies even surface stereotypes.
Jonathan Chait who writes for New York Magazine wrote that “It is not 1968”. He makes the point that on many levels the kind of racism institutionalized by Jim Crow and other laws have made huge improvements, what we see on the news reveals that the social, legal and political technology that we believe in is unable to dig deep enough within our hearts to change us at the level where change is required.
These words of Dr. King about violence are helpful but we have to be conscious of the fact that we trust in just and legal violence to bring peace and keep order. We trusted in police to take down the Dallas sniper. The practice of arrest and incarceration whether or not guns are drawn or fired are made effective by either implicit violence or the threat of violence backed by the government’s use of violence as the Apostle Paul discusses in Romans chapter 13.
We hope for violence to stop suicide bombers who blow up airports or to stop movements like ISIS or Boko Haram in Nigeria whose attacks regularly kill or kidnap hundreds of civilians often children. Continue reading
