Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Obama's Grandmother and Mine


Big Heart
Originally uploaded by Golden Emporium

When I was a young boy growing up in Toronto my grandmother took me to Detroit to see my Aunt Margaret. She lived in a high rise apartment building downtown, one I had not previously visited. While the adults were chatting I began to explore and soon my wanderings took me into the outer hallway. As I walked down the long corridor I looked up and came face to face with a black man--a custodian in the building as it turned out. I gasped and a sudden wave of fear washed over me. I turned and bolted down the hall and into the safety of my aunt's apartment.

There was nothing overt in my upbringing to give me a reason to be fearful of other races. I was never taught to feel negatively toward people of color. The racism I experienced in my family was subtle and cultural. For example, my grandmother would lead us through the playful musical ditty, Eanie Meanie Miney Moe/Catch a Nigger by the Toe/If He Hollers Let Him Go/Eanie Meanie Miney Moe. It never occurred to us that the song was racially charged, nor did it seem wrong when my grandmother referred to a Brazil nut as a "nigger toe."

Later in life, as education and experience began to sensitize me to cultural racism, I was appalled to think that racial references like that were to be found in the heart of my own family. It is because of that family memory that Barack Obama's remarkable speech on racism resonated within me with such power. In responding to the understandable firestorm over the incendiary remarks of his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama chose to do more than political damage control. In refusing to fully repudiate the man he described as "like family," Obama found the perfect point of reference in his own grandmother:
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Obama's courageous address is an illustration of why we need to take a chance on this guy. He reportedly labored into the night drafting this speech because he felt it needed to be said. He took a politically risky course because the issues are so important to the nation. Instead of scrambling to minimize political vulnerability Barack Obama chose to lead.

As a man with a black Kenyan father and a white Kansas mother, Obama's cultural roots are a bit more diverse than mine. But we both had a culturally challenged grandmother who loved us and who we continue to love, imperfections aside. Our shared memories become tools for the racial healing so urgently needed in our society. In his speech, Obama has framed the issues eloquently and passionately. He deserves our support.

My grandmother, may she rest in peace, was a Canadian with English and Pennsylvania Dutch bloodlines. I am sure she would be distressed to think her insensitivities would be recalled in this way. What I would explain to her is that personal memories and stories are the slices of life that link us together as human beings. Properly used in the cause of justice the stories become not an embarrassment but a blessing.

Note: The photo at the beginning of this blog is not of my grandmother or Barack Obama's. It was chosen because she looks like a grandmother we could all love.


12 comments:

  1. Obama makes a number of false suppositions. One statement he often makes is that he opposed the war from the beginning. Senator Obama was not in the Senate at the time the war began. It's easy for him to say he opposed it from the beginning. At the beginning of this war, as we remember,the entire decision to go to war was based on lies. No one knew this at the time, however, and a well beloved retired General reinforced the belief that the war was necessary when he spoke before the UN.

    Another thing to remember is that anyone who opposed the war at that time was considered a traitor.

    It was difficult to oppose the war at that time and given the climate at that time.

    Both my sons have been there. My older son, 50 years old at the time, was an activated member of the National Guard. My younger son, 47 years old, has been deployed four times in five years. His marriage dissolved while he was gone the last time to Afghanistan. His wife moved in with her boyfriend and left her 16 year old daughter with friends.

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  2. I can appreciate your point, Margie, especially after having to see your sons placed at risk for a war that shouldn't have been started in the first place.

    This post, however, was not to address policy distinctions or fine points about who said what when. I simply wanted to express my sense of personal connection with Obama's "grandmother" illustration and my admiration for the courageous speech he gave in the midst of a very difficult situation involving his pastor.

    There are good things to be said for the three candidates still standing. I just feel that Barack Obama continues to show not only remarkable communication skills but an intellectual depth and capacity to lead that is very rare in American politics these days.

    There are admittedly some risks because he's new to the national scene, but I believe his upside is so compelling that we will rue the day if we miss this opportunity to be led by one so gifted and visionary.

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  3. I am just so leery about a young man who has less than three years in the national scene. What can he possibly know about how to run a country in such a terrible time in America's history.

    I can appreciate his dilemma over his grandmother. Both my parents were racist and made such remarks.

    However, my parents and his grandmother grew up in a time when racism was simply a way of life.

    This is different from the remarks his pastor made. That was in recent history. When a person in today's world says such things as "America brought on 9/11 themselves" and other such remarks, then it is time to denounce that person not make a mentor of him. Even though he says he has not heard those remarks from his pastor personally in the past, he surely has heard other similar remarks.

    I have seen two or three such clips of his appalling remarks.

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  4. Rev. Wright made his remarks in a style that is unfamiliar to most white Protestant church goers, maybe even a little scary. I have heard white people make similar comments in less impassioned ways and I'm pretty sure they consider themselves to be patriots. Questioning decisions that your country makes doesn't necessarily make you a bad guy....It just means you disagree with your government. Isn't that what a democracy is all about?

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  5. That would be true if you are an ordinary citizen but when you are a candidate for president, you must be very careful about the people you adopt for your mentors.

    I have attended many black worship services and have never heard those radical views espoused. It's true those services are more emotionally charged then the usual white service but not containing those inflammatory racially charged remarks.

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  6. I work with predominately black kids in a predominately black environment.......and I can assure you that racism is alive and well, and living in Kansas City. There is a HUGE mistrust of other cultures among today's black youth, particuarly in the urban core. The racial slurs against ALL people that did not experience slavery fly freely in conversations between kids....judgements, criticisms, sarcastic and cutting remarks.But yet, ironically, the kids find nothing wrong in calling one another 'nigga'.

    It seems to me that the world is upside down in many ways...race and how we relate to one another being one of them. It feels like we are all so disconnected from each other. Maybe Obama can be one with the heart, the vision, the words, and the ability to take action that can actually begin to unite people by creating connections instead of divisions.

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  7. Thanks for your keen insight and gracious remarks to all who posted. I watched his speech and was amazed at the depth and calm demeanor as Obama gave voice to the history, meaning and reasons for a Black Liberation Theological approach, without demeaning anyone.

    I heard him live in Detroit last fall as he used the same thought and courage to challenge the auto industry at the Detroit Economic Club. I told my family, should this man become president, I would consider becoming a citizen.

    Thanks again Grant.

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  8. Thanks for the comment, Jerry. I appreciate hearing about your personal encounter with Obama.

    Take out US citizenship, eh? Pretty big step for an old geezer like you. I still remember going through the process when I was about 16 or thereabouts.

    You have to take a test, you know. :-)

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  9. Yeah, I know I have seen the test--it means I might have to spell my words funny.

    thanks for geezer remark you old...

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  10. Yes I know about the test --you have to misspell a lot of words and pronounce z incorrectly.

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  11. Misspelling shouldn't be an undue challenge for you should it, Jerry? Don't forget I used to read your field reports.

    Well, "read" might be a little strong.

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  12. Thanks,

    I was hoping for comic relief, but if my reports assisted in sleep, that's great. I had similar results at conferences--I slept very well.

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