A Million Little Triumphs
Via Ross and a friend’s recommendation I just came across this really lovely, graciously written post by Ezra Klein on the historic significance of Obama’s achievement.
On March 31st, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. preached his final Sunday sermon. “We shall overcome,” he said, “because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Four days later, he was murdered. But 40 years later, his dream is more alive than he could have ever imagined. Not only might a black man be president, but at times, many forget to even be surprised by it.
My hope is that this narrative will come to inform our civil rights discourse and our discourse around social justice. The marked economic progress of black Americans, in particular black American women, reflects and represents real moral progress. And this progress was not a product of the generosity or far-sightedness of America’s elites. Rather, it was the product of a composite struggle — the familiar political struggle, of course, but also mostly unremarked-upon struggles of individuals, families, and neighborhoods. Some attribute black progress to racial preferences or to civil service reform, and that surely played a role. But I think this is mainly a story about the resilience of individuals in the face of a challenging economic environment, a badly broken criminal justice system, and a powerful legacy of exclusion and mistrust. By emphasizing the role of individuals, we can inoculate ourselves against self-serving despair and we can think clearly about the next steps we need to take — as individuals and in common.
P.S. By a million triumphs, I don’t mean to invoke Triumph.
Who, pray tell, might attribute this progress to the “generosity” of “elites”? I call straw man.
— matt · Jun 5, 01:41 PM · #
I’m not asking this because I want to score a point. I’m asking out of genuine curiosity:
Can anybody point to a black person who’s written a similarly gushing review of Obama’s racial accomplishment?
My next question: should it matter?
— JA · Jun 5, 05:43 PM · #
“Can anybody point to a black person who’s written a similarly gushing review of Obama’s racial accomplishment?”
Sure, I can. Right here: http://halfricanrevolution.blogspot.com/2008/06/theres-never-been-brother-this-good-for.html
“Two hundred years ago they said we were three-fifths of human beings. A hundred years ago they were hanging us from trees. Fifty years ago we couldn’t vote in the South. They tried to make us property, today they try to make us numbers.
“Now one of us is about to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. Do not forget this. Do not forget what we can do, because he wouldn’t be here without us. When they say we can’t unite, or we can’t hold each other up, when they say we can’t love each other.
“Malcolm said we weren’t Americans. He said we had never been Americans. But I think even Malcolm would sit back tonight and smile, and realize that wasn’t the whole story. America can only love itself as much as it loves us, and as much as we love it back. And we love it the way only we can, because we know intimately its ugly contradictions, its furious hypocrisy, its shining promise.
“Every little black child with his eye on the sparrow will grow up, from this point on, knowing this is no longer just a Dream.
“Some people aren’t ready to accept it. But America could never be America without us.
“All of us.”
There’s lots more like that. And yes, I imagine it does matter.
— southpaw · Jun 5, 11:31 PM · #
Re: generosity of elites.
Sigh. This isn’t a strawman! Remember Hillary Clinton’s remarks about LBJ? I consider Hillary Clinton a fairly weighty figure in contemporary US history.
Then there is Darryl Pinckney:
This is, in my view, absurd.
— Reihan · Jun 6, 06:42 AM · #