March 20, 2008

Obama is no Archimedes.

This week the purveyors of profundity pounced on Barack Obama’s quest to be the great hope for a post-racial America.

Here are some comments from the right:

Obama’s new implied promise of a presidency of endless race-based agitation may well constitute an offer that we easily can refuse. –Michael Medved 

But President of the United States, in a time of national danger, under a looming threat of nuclear terrorism? No. –Thomas Sowell 

… he can and will survive this battle.  –Dick Morris

Well, you can't pick your grandma, but you can pick your pastor ... –Michelle Malkin 

We probably need to wait until Barack Obama better knows who he is … –Dennis Prager

And from the left:

He used his address as a teachable moment … –Washington Post 

It is hard to imagine how he could have handled it better … –New York Times 

…we are closer today, thanks to this remarkable address, to facing our history and perfecting our nation. –Los Angeles Times

I’m reminded of John Godfrey Saxe's (1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend, “The Blind Men and the Elephant”:

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

[Tactile exam of elephant parts by each blind man yields opinions that it is a wall, tree, spear, rope, snake or fan.]

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

Thanks to Townhall.com and the new media we are no longer blind. We know Obama and his family have been steeped in a particularly disturbing view of the “elephant” of American race relations. So, the premise of Obama’s campaign—that he is the new Archimedes, ready to move the world if he had a place to stand—no longer makes sense.

Trinity United Church of Christ was not the place to stand, and now we know that Obama’s campaign was presumptuous, not audacious, in elevating him as the “one” who would “see” the whole “elephant.” The claim that he was the singular figure through which Americans could finally be informed about post-racial America came crashing down. Despite his protestations, we know that Obama was just one more blind man.

Post-racial America will be defined by the good faith, interpersonal dealings of ordinary Americans; it will never come as part of a political calculation by those angling for higher office.

It was presumptuous, not audacious, to think that Obama could give new meaning to anyone’s experiences on race relations any more that I can inform him of how to give meaning to his own experience.

For example, I remember reading “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks” by Randall Robinson, and thinking that the book’s premise made no sense to me. Of course not, Robinson was describing his view of the elephant, not mine. And so it goes.

30 years after the American Revolution, John Adams wrote Jefferson with a lucrative proposition. Because they had been unique witnesses to all the proceedings giving rise to our country’s birth, they should co-author a definitive history of the American Revolution. Jefferson declined out-of-hand, observing that no one could or should ever tell the story of the American Revolution because it wasn’t over yet!

Jefferson was right, as always; ordinary Americans will continue to write the compelling story of the American experience. With the baggage of Rev. Wright’s foolishness, not to mention the support of the New Black Panther Party, Obama was presumptuous to think he would have the credibility to write even a chapter on this important issue in the American experience.

Johnnie Byrd is a lawyer and host of “Johnnie Byrd’s Weekend” heard on WGUL-AM 860 in Tampa Bay, FL. Contact Johnnie at johnnie.byrd@hotmail.com.