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January 28, 2008
the watchman on the wall
Yesterday, Caroline Kennedy, only surviving member of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's marital family, endorsed Democratic candidate Barack Obama for the office her father died while holding. Today, Senator Edward Kennedy, only surviving brother in that Kennedy generation, was expected to do the same.
In an eloquent and somewhat poignant opinion column, Ms. Kennedy said that people were telling her that this candidate inspired in them the hope, the optimism, the potential, that her father had once inspired. That of all the available field, this man stood out, carried that same sort of sense that the world could be different, that we could make it different, that individual people with a concern could do something that had meaning in the larger scheme of things. So she endorsed him--anointing him in a way with the spirit of Camelot.
Barack Obama, a United States Senator from Illinois of mixed race heritage, won the Democratic primary in South Carolina.
Say that slowly. A black man won the Democratic party primary in the very Southern state of South Carolina, the home of Strom Thurmond, the home of a state defense of Confederate flag displays, the home of the Clarendon County School District, where an auto mechanic named Harry Briggs forfeited his livelihood and that of most of his family members to become the lead plaintiff in one of the cases that would make up the Brown decision. The Clarendon County that is probably today still segregated, though not officially, in a state that is still a harbinger of the deepest racial divides of America history.
Say it again, slowly.
A few months back, a reporter for the New York Times was interviewing black women in a hair salon in South Carolina. The question had to do with whether they would support Mr. Obama, the black man, or Hillary Clinton, the woman candidate. For those responding it was a dilemma. Both factions, and the party is dividing along these factions, unfortunately, were important to them. But you know what comment stood out for me the most?
The concern that if Barack Obama were elected president of this country, he would be assassinated.
Like Jack. Like Bobby. Like Martin.
These women are smart, even if they are not college educated, and even if they don't tote around many theories about leadership and identity and presence. They understand the gritty fact that if you stand up and say those of us who are Americans are not just white, we are many colors and many faiths and the true meaning of being American is to embrace all of that in the context of the liberty proclaimed in our founding documents, that your life may be the price.
I'm told that next week, New York is part of that media circus that is variously know as Super Tuesday or Tsunami Tuesday, or whatever, when most of the delegates to the very outdated electoral college will be decided. And my problem with that day is that I can't support the candidate I want to. Why? Because when I moved to the great State of New York, I registered, as I have always done, as a Republican.
My choices? Let's not even go there.
My party has let me down for so many years on so many levels that it is impossible to justify my allegiance. So I won't. I will only attempt to by saying that I consider myself a Lincoln Republican. More on that another time.
I ran across a quote by President Kennedy in my research today, about how the words we proclaim about democracy don't override the discrimination diplomats experience when they come to this country. 1963. Yes, it was a long time ago. But it was also nearly 10 years after Brown. He felt the need to say it. and in the same speech, the speech he never got to give in Dallas that November day, he would have concluded:
We in this country, in this generation, are--by destiny rather than choice--the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of "peace on earth, good will toward men." That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: "except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
He also promised in that speech that our nation's power would never be used aggressively, but always for peace. My party has failed in that promise. The "Audacity of Hope" that Barak Obama brings makes me wish, like never before, that party politics were not what they are, and that I could go out a week from now and vote for the best shining light I've seen since I was a toddler.
Thank you, Caroline.
Update: There's a great discussion on Obama's victory over on
Posted by cageyer at January 28, 2008 08:55 PM
Comments
I hadn't thought at all of the assassination possibility until I was talking to digital penny while visiting her over the break. She said she's afraid for him to win.
And that totally sucks.
Also, re: the registering. I have been meaning to see if I need to be registered with a party to vote in the primaries. So, thanks for letting me know. I was hoping NY was a state that I could vote in the primaries without being a registered somebody. Because while I am registered voter, I am not registered with a party. Because as you have always registered as a Republican, I have always *not* taken up a party affiliation.
I shouldn't have to. But again, it totally sucks.
Posted by: madeline at January 28, 2008 10:18 PM
Can you not change your affiliation now? In Michigan, you can change your affiliation at the polls.
I too am hoping for Obama. And I am genuinely really worried about the possibility for assassination. I hope the family is well guarded.
Posted by: Leah at January 29, 2008 08:49 AM