- by Alex Carao
Regardless of where you were on election day, it was a very special day. You may have been watching from a bar in Times Square, or from a hot-dog stand in the Santa Monica pier, or even from an ancient brewhouse in downtown Geneve. But you were watching. Now the dust has settled somewhat, we're all watching the transition and waiting for the inauguration as if we were waiting for the second coming. For me, it's time to put my thoughts, and feelings, down on paper
Right after the decision has been made, but before any action can take place. So exactly the time when you can make statements, capture them, and then go down in flames when things go awry...
Langston Hughes said a long time ago: "Git on back there in the night, you ain't white". Living in today's America it is hard to believe, -but not impossible- that only a few years ago that was the prevalent sentiment in the "most advanced country on the planet". Given the complexity of this society it is not surprising that this process has been so painful and that is has taken so long, but even if I run the risk of sounding callous, it is very exciting to live in that tipping moment when at least some of these issues are becoming a historical fact rather than a state of affairs. I wasn't there during the years of slavery, I wasn't there during the beginnings of the civil rights movement, and I don't have the heritage of hundreds of years of oppression, so I come to this with the look of an outsider, someone who tries to understand but who in most cases probably fails to appreciate the complexity of the issue involved. And yet, it seems that this generation of Americans are looking at this in the same way that this foreigner is, as an abject state of things that seems so distant from the day to day workings of our society that it really shouldn't be anything but a faint nightmare in somebody else's memory. For the first time, we have a generation of Americans that are bringing a new way of looking at the social mechanisms that rule their society. For the first time, there are enough of those Americans to really make a difference like they did on election day. And the best thing of all, those Americans views aren't just different in terms of race, they are also different in many other areas where we haven't seen significant change in the last half century.
We will.
Any given person can see this as the result of wise education; a people that has finally understood the error of its ways. I look at it differently; as a generation that finally doesn't care because the harsh memories have died with previous generations and because in the absence of a justification for inequality, common sense will point us to balance. So segregation is wrong. Any one person can see that, but it takes collective amnesia for a whole society to come to the same conclusion. Same thing happens, to some extent, with social inequality. That is probably the next place for this new generation of Americans to flex its muscles and exert its new found power. No, I am not talking about socialism. No, I am not talking about general welfare, or any other thought that points to the idea that absolute equality is the perfect state of being. I am against equalitarianism, just as Aristotle was, but for different reasons. He postulated that 'some men are born to be slaves', which gives a natural connotation to the reason for social division; such principle degenerates in segregation. My thought (and that of many others), is that social stratification is given by what you do instead of what you are. Call that pragmatic individualism, or call it what you like, but therein lies the difference between segregation and classification. As long as individuals are given the same opportunities to become the best they can, then I do consider the system of social stratification a fair one. That is where this new generation of Americans should focus their attention, and that is what Obama has promised them.
In principle, America was founded upon the tenet that says: "all men are created equal", which to me is an extremely accurate description of what I am trying to postulate. All men are created equal, but it is their lives that set them apart from each other. That to me is justice. And to me, it is the function of the state to provide the same opportunities at the time of creation, so that the responsibility of growth lies on the individual and so we avoid the need for a welfare state. America's problem was never its conception, which was brilliant from the beginning. America's problem was in the execution of that vision. We all know about segregation already, but the implementation of the State's responsibility to provide opportunities to its constituents was -not surprisingly- approached from the top. "Provide to the wealthy and wealth will trickle down to the poor". Finally we have a generation of Americans who disagree with that statement and who have enough power to start the path of change.
That, to me, is the main "change" that Obama is tying to implement. Opportunities should be implemented from the ground up, instead of from the top down. It is probably an undertaking as monumental as putting segregation in the past, but at least it seems that now we have the right mindset to achieve it. Obama is the first promise of that change. He will not see it through, and he is probably going to be the first of many victims in that trek, but I am optimistic that now we have the will to go in a direction where we haven't ventured before, and that I believe is a better path than the one we are currently on. You may not know it, but this would be a radical change in our society. So much so, that I am calling it "The Obama insurrection"
Obama just got himself into the biggest mess in a generation (probably since WWII), on purpose!!! You really have to question his sanity. Let's just hope that he stays true to his promise. He may not get there, but if he keeps faithful to the direction that he has stated, that may be all we need to garner enough critical mass to make the change all but inevitable.
Alex