The Shrill Is Gone
I tend to evaluate things exclusively from an intellectual standpoint and not an emotional standpoint. As a result, I’m usually not in touch with my own emotions. And when I do get in touch with them, it is either with some effort on my part, or what I am feeling comes as a surprise to me. Specifically, I was surprised to discover that Barack Obama’s election has become very emotional for me.
As a prelude to disclosing how I feel about the election, I need first to disclose my political preferences. Such a disclosure under normal circumstances I believe is inappropriate on this forum. Furthermore, I don’t like to label myself because labels invite stereotypes that may or may not appropriately describe me.
I am a color-blind conservative with well-defined, intellectually-based views on the various issues facing America today. Some of those views are positions that are morally equivalent to views that are opposed to mine and therefore are simply part of the marketplace of political ideas. Others are positions informed by the Bible and, in my opinion, are moral imperatives that are superior to opposing ideas, and in fact have something to say about the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the way I conduct my life and my politics.
After Obama’s win was assured on election night, I watched the televised shots of his supporters. Every supporter on the winning side of anything will be excited, so I wasn’t particularly struck by all the images of celebration. You get that in locker rooms of winning teams (you might remember the Broncos once experienced that kind of excitement!!) What is sticking in my mind is the elation - in fact, the glow – on the faces of common everyday Black supporters. And the joy in Kenya, which took understandable pride in the man whose roots and family members are in that country.
As election night gave way to the morning after, I was able to stop thinking about how our new President will deal with this issue and that issue and what would be the likely results of those decisions that are so different from my positions. I began to get in touch with my emotions. And where a Black person might take pride in identifying with a very accomplished, very smart, very gifted Black man who has just been elected President of the United States – where a Kenyan might take pride in identifying with a man whose childhood took place in part in that country – I take pride in America!! Once again, the American Dream has made possible that which many had believed to be impossible!
The Best Man at our wedding is Black. We have remained close since college days. I have no idea what his politics are. I just know he is my kind of guy - the quality of his character, his being achievement-oriented, and just being a great guy. I know he’s faced prejudice, but I’ve never known him to be bitter or angry about it. I’ve been trying to get some idea from him how he feels emotionally about Obama’s win. He, like me, tends to be more cerebral in his evaluation, saying simply he expected some day a Black person could become President. His comment seemed to me to speak more about “America” than “Black.”
Then my mind went to Martin Luther King who I heard speak while I was a student at Michigan State. His blood was shed, as well as that of many others, in order to make this American ideal real. While the issue was race, in the final analysis, it wasn’t as much about race as it was about America and Opportunity and the Dignity of Man who was created in the Image of God.
Hopefully, “the shrill is gone” – if you’ll pardon my play on words in describing the end of the political campaign. I want to enjoy the emotion I am feeling, the tear in my eyes and the lump in my throat as I imagine the American Flag flying superimposed on the image of Martin Luther King standing on the balcony of that motel in Memphis, as I see the Obama supporters in this country and in Kenya, as I honor our best man for the quality of his character and not the color of his skin, and as I remember the words “give me your tired and your poor….”
Obama’s politics might not be my politics, but now that America has spoken at the ballot box, my pride in America has trumped my political viewpoints. I will still hold my viewpoints. I will still especially promote those viewpoints that are Biblical moral imperatives, never deviating from them. But I will support and pray for our President Barack Obama. And I can tell you that I fervently hope he succeeds and, for the sake of America, proves that he has better viewpoints than my own.
Originally published November 05, 2008.
