Obama's Gift to Me
Now I know that many of you were moved (to rage, to tears, whatever) by Barack Obama's nomination acceptance speech at Mile High the other day...
Let me tell you a little about my own experience.
All my life I have grown up knowing that some things were closed to me. Once, when I was twelve, I spent a couple of days trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, because people had been asking me that question long enough that I grew tired of lying to them. I'm pretty sure I knew what I wanted, even then. I wanted to be a politician. I wanted to be president. But when I told people that, I got back the message that this was unrealistic, that white people would ever hold me out of the corridors of power. There was never a coherent why attached to this, no reasoning to support it, but there it was.
So I did the research. And I realised that not only had there never been a black president, there had never even been a major party nominee for president. This despite the qualifications of Shirley Chisolm, who ran in 1972. I finally concluded that I was best sticking with the lie, and so I chose the most mind-bendingly difficult job I could imagine, astrophysicist. (BTW, if you think astronomy isn't hard, you've never been anything but a casual stargazer.)
And so began the squashing of my amibition. The highest heights were no longer mine to conquer.
In high school, I took the government class that was required to become a candidate for student body president. I went to the affluent school in Oakland, Skyline High. There were two blacks in a class of about a dozen people. I campaigned like mad. My candidacy was laughed out of contention, never even appeared on the ballot.
I stopped trying to become popular. And I learned some measure of hate for white people. It was not the kind of moronic and active despite commonly seen in the black community. Mine was more general, and quiet. And it eventually scarred over. The lesson my kin taught me was complete. The dream of political power was dead. I turned to other skills for my livelihood, my sustenance. Fortunately for me, I had skills aplenty to choose from. I chose computers (and, honestly, they chose me).
Down through the years, friends time and again have told me I should be in politics. I had the kind of mind that could play that game well, and the kind of uncompromising, ideological spirit that was a hallmark of major (especially right-wing) politicos. Each time I agreed, yes I should. And then I went about my business.
(There's a note here I could insert to soften this tragic tale - a moment I could take to own my shit. But that would break this nice clean narrative. So nope, not gonna.)
The advent of blogging gave me the opportunity to vent my tiny little frustrations, to exercise this side of me that previously only had expression in the kind of meaningless, much-too-loud conversations carried on between friends. It's fun and easy to preach to the choir. But that wasn't what I wanted. And so I took the chance in this newer life to venture my political opinions to the world, safe in the knowledge that I'd still get lost in the noise, and not be subject to the mockery and racism.
And so I have been the Swordfighting Pundit for a few years now.
Until Barack Obama came down, accepted his nomination for the presidency, and called me on my shit.
Hey wait, you say, did you watch the same speech I did? When did he say "Hey Darrin, it's your fault you're not standing here instead of me"? Well, yes, I did.
Well, no, he didn't. What he did do was remind me what hope means. Actually, Biden said it a bit more explicitly. "...get back up" he said. In any case, Obama re-awakened in me those memories of ambition crushed.
So I spent a little bit of time, watching that speech, crying for all my lost time and opportunities. Crying for my life lost. And then...then he kept speaking. He talked about the better future we could build.
And he gave me to understand that I could go in the direction of my childhood dreams, still. That my best days could well be ahead of me. In this age of cynicism and reduced expectations and stagnant wages, and falling standards of living, that is a huge thing.
I'm not the fool I was as a child. I certainly don't think the presidency is within my reach. Governor of California? Heh, maybe.
I have been given much food for thought. Perhaps enough to last me twenty years and a whole new career.
Oh, and thanks to rimblemethis for reminding me to swallow that first bite. I was still chewing on it two days after the speech, and was trying not to accept the implications. Even if I don't go that way, it won't be from simple inertia.