The Audacity of Hope

It is often said that the reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep in order to believe it. And so it was that as Barack Hussein Obama, son of a black Kenyan father and white American mother, stood on the podium in Chicago having just won the elected vote to be the 44^th President of the United States of America, I found that I was indeed pinching myself to ensure that I wasn’t still in a state of reverie. Forty-five years ago, Martin Luther King Jr stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and gave what is regarded by many as one of the greatest speeches of all time. He dreamt of an America that would one day honour the true meaning of the creed “all men are created equal.” He dreamt of an America whereby the sons of slaves and the sons of slave owners could sit at the table of brotherhood. He dreamt of an America whereby his children would be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. He dreamt of one day black boys and girls holding hands with white boys and girls and walking together as brothers and sisters; even in the darkest and deepest racial corners of American society…He was some dreamer that Martin Luther.

Modern-day America isn’t quite yet King’s utopia and one only has to look at the disproportionate numbers of black men languishing in American jails, or better still, examine the US Government’s response (read: lack of) in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to accept this. By the same token however, modern-day America is also almost unrecognisable from the dire place of extreme racial prejudice, segregation and mass civil unrest and disobedience that it had been on that April morning four and a half decades ago. For some blacks however, Barack Obama will forever remain an exception to an otherwise hard and unbending rule. They will state that had he been just another very good black candidate, he wouldn’t have even beaten Hillary Clinton much less clinched the presidential nomination. And so justifiably, they will argue that for black people to succeed and/or gain recognition in traditional white domains, they have to be so exceptionally talented that even the most fervent of racists would be hard-pressed to deny them their rightful accolades. This remains true for now, but I say to them this: Be patient, for Rome wasn’t built in a day! For others still, Barack Obama isn’t black enough. They say that he is as white as he is black. They also say that he was raised and nurtured by his white mother and by his white extended family. I say to them this: Look at the reaction to the Obama victory on the African continent. Many of those Africans dancing on the streets of Nairobi are, to borrow that well-known American phrase, “blacker than a motherfucker!’’ If Barack Obama is black enough for them, then he is black enough for me too!

Obama’s nomination takes us far forward and on towards the culmination of that long march to freedom. His nomination washes away the notion held by many blacks that we can progress only so far and no more. His nomination rubbishes the flawed ideology that poor, black kids from impoverished neighbourhoods growing up in single parenthood are doomed to failure. No longer is the hope of social escapism solely enshrined in becoming the next Tiger Woods or the next 50cent. Some called Obama a terrorist-associating, turban-wearing, hate- sermon loving, non-American. Others still, referred to him as a drug taking, flip-flopping, illegal aunt-having, inexperienced upstart. And that was from those on his own side! In the end it mattered not, because cometh the hour, cometh the man! 

Here in the United Kingdom, we like to pat ourselves on our collective backs and talk about how racially diverse and tolerant we all are. Progress has indeed been made on this side of the Atlantic too but please don’t confuse Aleysha Dixon winning Strictly Come Dancing with genuine racial progress. Have a long hard look within the corridors of influence and power in this country and you will see many a black face. However, they will more likely than not be the ones cooking the food in the canteen, cleaning the office or toiling in the mailroom. I ask myself, where are our Condaleeza Rices, where are our General Colin Powells, where are our Denzil Washingtons, where indeed are our Senator Barack Obamas? It is then that I remind myself that the racial dynamics of the two societies aren’t, if you pardon the pun, so black and white. Black history in America is entrenched in an entire legacy of slavery and spans 400 plus years. For the most part, Black history in Britain can only be traced back to Tantie Merle, dressed to kill in her Sunday best, stepping off the Windrush at Tilbury docks in 1948. It seems that London, much like Rome, wasn’t built in a day either.

The presidency of Barack Obama will mean many things to many people and in the end, history alone will be the final arbiter as to whether this was indeed such a landmark achievement. Until then however, we too can have the audacity of Obama’s hope and the dreams of Martin Luther King. We too can dream of a world where the rule of international law applies the same on Capitol Hill as it does in Kigali. We too can dream of a world where the rich and powerful are not always allowed to ride roughshod over the poor and downtrodden. We too can dream of a world whereby those held in detention at least know what crimes they have committed. We too can dream of a world whereby wars are not fought on the basis of lies and whim. We can but dream…

prophet