Hope in the Age of Obama
Yesterday’s ardent apologists have now made their rhetorical revisions to suit the faithful, all calculated to insure a commitment to deeper unfeigned change.
“Part of the problem why we continue to visit these moments is because there is of a lack of honesty about how we got here. Racism, bigotry, prejudice and hatred are elements woven into the fabric of this country. There can be no healing in this land if we are not honest about who we are.” –Rev. Michael A. Walrond Jr. (the pastor at First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, June 21 2015)
Both ideological constituents and financial directors can rest easy: the Governor’s words will not overwrite the convictions Reverend Walrond, Jr. so well understands. America’s tortured reality will soon resume its natural course. The Republican politicians fabricated duress will convert into more comfortable slogans or simply be elided from the next news cycle. This satisfying if not unexpected outcome is all part of the show for those for whom any change would be deemed bad for business.
Americans are not people for whom the realities of self-revision have much provenance beyond immediate economic gains unless it is to provide an update that reclaims old, well-founded prejudices. We prefer instead to act as if there were no yesterday, to pretend nothing endemic in the failure that lies at the root of our founding as a nation. To register “progress” because slavery has been abolished and racism is now beyond fashionable norms tells us less about what we have achieved than it does how much we prefer to refuse to understand. By next week, well, things will be just fine. Again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
