Obama Exits, Having Gently Bent the Arc of Justice

In the shadow of the sad presidency of George W. Bush, the world was introduced to Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Looking to make an impression for a Senate run from Illinois, instead, the then 43-year-old made a down-payment to a historic future presidential run. He sounded young, organic and seemed to speak of a hopeful America, that unlike the then pro-war president, believed peace was still possible in the world, that illegal immigrants deserved a path to citizenship, that diversity remained America’s greatest strength and the role of an America needed to be reconstructed so that its best legacy rested in creating institutions such as the Peace Corps and not in never-ending wars.

In choosing Obama to speak at the convention, in prime-time and in front of millions, reflected Democratic candidates John Kerry’s desire to solidify the electoral loyalty of African Americans whose support did not seem iron clad and could have threatened his lifelong ambition of being President. It also seemed to consolidate the disappointment many felt in choosing a one-term Senator, John Edwards, an affluent anti-poverty lawyer, as a running mate, when a female or a visible minority would have done wonders.

Obama, whose audacious life story and message of hope made the mainstream white society not fear him but embrace him, would go on and win his senate seat against the fringe candidacy of Alan Keyes. Supported enthusiastically by the Kennedy-clan, perhaps seen as a continuation of the dream of Senator Robert Kennedy, his candidacy for the presidency would begin the day he became a United States Senator.

In just four years, “the skinny kid with a funny name and ear,” would earn the nomination of his party, against the Bill & Hillary Clinton political machine and win the presidency, beating a respected and maverick Republican war hero, John McCain. In becoming America’s first black president, he perhaps disappointed author Toni Morrison, who tongue in cheek named Bill Clinton, the saxophone playing son of a single mom, as America’s first black president.

I answered the call-to-volunteer for Obama, when I saw a Carleton University professor volunteer for Hillary Clinton on CNN and described how Canadians can also make a difference in a US election that had became a referendum on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. I was in Pennsylvania, having traveled from Toronto, Canada when Obama became America’s 44th President. I was one-of-his millions of foot soldiers from around the world stationed all over America.

I joined a delegation of Ethiopian-Americans in Ohio, bused from Washington D.C. in search of the hopeful voice of a man who is essentially part-East African and saw in him, a possible destination for all. We were excited and saw our effort as what the civil rights movement was for a generation just above ours. We knocked on doors, spoke at African American churches, visited the doted immigrant areas, where Ethiopian restaurants strived and helped collect signatures and donations for the campaign. Many times, it seemed, lots of money and the influential establishment favourite candidacy of Hillary Clinton would crash our spirits and efforts, yet we believed the impossible was possible.

I vividly remember when doors were shut in our faces, black Americans telling us that “an African” would never be elected president and that Obama was a Muslim, a terrorist in a so-called Christian nation and told me and many others to go back to where we came from. In due-time, the campaign would be embraced by the electorate especially among African Americans, whose loyalty of the Clinton’s is often unhealthy and concerning. This became truer as Bill Clinton started musing about outdated notions of black voters, and also started to compare the candidacy of Obama to the candidacy of Jesse Jackson and other black presidential candidates who were protest candidates than mainstream standard bearers of the Democratic Party.

At the end, I saw and witnessed as America elected Obama as their very first black president in November 2008 and showed the world what was still possible in a nation that has yet to shake its discriminatory past. At the end, historians will not judge Obama as America’s best, nor second or third. He was not. He was an average president but symbolically, he remains a powerful voice for good and he will still be one, when he leaves office. I remain hopeful, he will use his voice, to finish the work he started as President.

America is a country that still practices the death-penalty when civilised nations are running away from it, its court system remain broken and racism is still an issue in the country. African Americans are still killed regularly by the police because of their skin colour without accountability, and so-called illegal immigrants remain second-class citizens while they remain paramount to America’s economy.

Abroad, Obama leaves office not negotiating a peace deal in the Middle-East. American soldiers are departing Iraq and Afghanistan, but those nations remain engaged in conflicts. Africa is still a sad dumping ground for charitable contributions when and open and fair trade is likely to produce better results. But to his credit, Obama has also made a noted contribution by making the American health-care system more accessible to the working poor. He has repudiated torture and affirmed America’s commitment to the Geneva Convention, and opened the door to a rapproachment with Cuba

America’s 44th president is best judged by the symbolism of his presidential win of a nation where slavery was once legal, and not only by the substantive contribution he made to progress on various policy fronts. Symbols sometimes remain a powerful of sign of progress in the world.


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