In his heart-breaking second inaugural address, Lincoln argued that the “unrequited toil” and “every drop of blood drawn with the lash” would be redeemed by the war, but a month later he was murdered. The quite deliberately constructed aftermath of the war destroyed Lincoln’s promise, although Americans told themselves otherwise. They glorified war, while preserving an injustice that war supposedly overcame. That was only yesterday.
Obama embodies more than he can know. “Change” is his mantra, but the potential for transformation goes far beyond the kinds of policies pursued in Washington. Those policies are rooted in assumptions sunk deep into the national psyche, and into the structure of memory that gives it shape. War is not necessarily redemptive. Africans are not necessarily disadvantaged. African-Americans are not mere victims. Race, for that matter, need not be definitive. An old story is offered a new ending – which is the beginning America has been awaiting. The day has come.
Without the cachet of being a well-spoken Black, Sen. Obama would never have made it into the national political arena. The (in my opinion) misplaced sense of guilt that is a legacy of slavery is the only thing propelling him towards the White House.
And what is this hogwash about “the bloody legacy of colonialism?” The colonial era is Africa saw far less bloodshed and far more material progress than at any time either before or since.
The guilt account is overdrawn, thus the decibel level increases. People of all sorts of ethnicities flock to the majority-white US and prosper.
The fact that Obama self-identifies as black despite having a white mother and being raised entirely by white family members actually strikes at the core premises of the secular state. Race, apparently, really does exist and plays a large role in Obama’s sense of identity. This is why the Left has quietly tiptoed away from the cause of ethnic pride by minority groups in favor of gay pride, since homosexuals are an affront to the pre-state institutions of Tribe and Faith and so depend entirely upon the secular state for their validation. This sense of discomfort also motivates the Left to lionize a racially mixed candidate as the forebear of a uniform, tan-colored polity that has risen above ethnic differences and phenotypes. But in doing so, they are tripped up by their own premises. In the end, the only thing that distinguishes Obama is his genetics, and so the Left again find themselves with their hands on the great Third Rail of discourse in the US.