Topics: election, politics

Barack Obama is our President. Now What?

On this historic day, a number of Is Greater Than’s contributors write about the ways we must go forward, now that Barack Obama is the President-Elect of the United States of America.

Leland Cheuk

Tonight we are finally the city on the hill.

But tomorrow and come late January when Obama is sworn into the office, will we still be? Will Obama make the right decisions and get us out of Iraq? Will he make the tough decisions necessary to restore fiscal and executive responsibility back to the White House in this economic meltdown? Will he resist the urge to compromise, both personally and politically, as Clinton did? And will Obama lead and inspire as he has the potential to do? Yes he can. And yes he did, for one night. But will he continue to?

Leland Cheuk is a novelist living in San Francisco.

Paul M. Davis

I have never been so proud to be an American citizen as I was last night, as McCain took the stage to deliver a speech that may go down in history as one of the most dignified and eloquent concession speeches ever. Barack Obama — a Constitutional Law professor, a black man in what remains a bitterly divisive nation — became our President-elect. And it is good. For the first time in eight years, we can all hold our heads high as citizens of the world, as people celebrate in the streets — not only in Chicago, IL, not only in the United States, but around the world, from Canada to Kenya, France to Japan.

We have much work to do, and Obama can not possibly fix it all. There are many things that must be done that are not even on his docket. Once again, civil rights for homosexuals in this country have been shot down, with the passage of Proposition 8 in California. We have a Constitution bowing under the weight of precedents set by the George W. Bush administration. We are in two wars that no one has a idea how to resolve.

Let’s not make the mistake that Clinton supporters did in 1992, pinning unrealizable expectations on a single charismatic, yet inevitably flawed, figure. For many readers of and contributors to this site, Obama’s administration will take an at-times-frustratingly centrist approach to governing. There are many inequalities in this nation and this world which the Obama administration will fail to redress.

Still, this is a day for celebration. The good that Obama will do for this nation — and has already done, by sheer glint of winning the office — will reverberate for generations to come. He is truly this nation’s first President of the 21st Century, as opposed to our current lame-duck-in-chief, who seemed to govern as President of the 18th Century. But for all the caveats, with Obama in office, this country will finally move forward.

Paul M. Davis is the editor and publisher of Is Greater Than.

Peter Koht

Halfway through the Chicago speech last night (and three quarters of the way through the champagne bottle) I had the rogue thought that this election represents a new model of activism and a much better approach to building a coalition.

The Clintons and Kerry were representative of the old guard, anti-war 60s ideology tempered by the gradual accumulation of wealth, privilege and habit. But Obama’s volunteer army and his embrace of social media allowed many more people to actively participate in the election rather than criticize on the sideline.

I think the two David’s deserve a lot of credit for expanding the base, and their efforts to target rural “red” areas will continue to pay dividends down the road. I just sincerely hope that Obama realizes that his large electoral college win will be served by governing pragmatically and working with the fiscal conservatives to fix infrastructure and the finance system before tackling health care. In other words, don’t go out and make HR 1 about gays in the military.

Peter Koht is a freelance journalist based in the San Francsico Bay Area.

Levi Fuller

I would not be surprised to learn that there have already been more words written about the 2008 Presidential Election than about any election in history, and that total is only going to increase geometrically over the next days, weeks and years. I don’t feel the need to add too much to that total, but I do want to say that yesterday evening, as it started to become apparent that Barack Obama was indeed going to become our 44th President, I realized that my attitude toward the majority of my fellow Americans (and people in general) could be softened in one fell swoop. For the majority of voters to sit through that campaign - the lies and the slander and the fear and the exaggerations and the guilt-by-association attacks - and to see through it all, and to rise up and speak clearly and say “we choose That One,” instilled a faith in my fellow man that I didn’t think I could ever have. I just hope that the energy and positivity I saw last night - running through the streets of Seattle high-fiving strangers of all ages and colors - can be carried through the next 4 (8!) years and beyond and really bring this country the change and hope it needs.

Levi Fuller is a Seattle-based musician, and the man behind the Ball of Wax compilation quarterly.

Rob Miller

I want to drink from the Kool-Aid, I really do. And, yes, this is a tremendous victory for reasons symbolic and beyond; the rose-colored big media would not let me forget that, and the self-congratulatory mythologizing of America’s story was in its full throated glory. But let us not forget that there were still 50 million plus voters who chose to support the losing party, despite an eight year administration that has piled civil liberties, foreign relations, the environment, science, fiscal responsibility, human rights and reasoned discourse on to a flaming shit wagon and kicked it down a hill. There is, at this writing, only a 6% difference in the popular vote. Let us take the good, verging on euphoric feelings and energy of last night, the culmination of so much activism and political engagement, and keep them stoked. It is only through persistent personal action on a massive scale that the potential of last night will have a chance. The fact of Obama’s election is truly remarkable, to be sure. A victory, yes, but also just a first step.

Rob Miller is the founder and owner of Bloodshot Records.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

My people, we have arrived. And no, I don’t mean my American people. I mean Black folks. You see, I grew up Black in a country started by and run by white folks. I grew up learning at school that the only great achievements of people who looked like me were not being slaves anymore and no longer getting beaten in the streets just for trying to sit at a lunch counter. I grew up being asked to celebrate George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, slave holders — people who took advantage of their right to own people who looked like me. I grew up in a country where it was understood that Blacks don’t become President. So I grew up Black in America, but I never felt American.

So, Black folks, we have arrived. As I spoke to my 90 year old grandmother tonight, the lady who did the hard work of leaving her homeland (Barbados) to start over in the US, the lady who was at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, I cried tears of joy because my grandmother lived to see the day. Because I lived to see the day. The day when a Black man became President. The day when white folks thought the content of his character mattered more than the color of his skin. The day when young Black men and Black women saw, really saw, that we can and should tear down the barriers put before us and our communities.

So, today I am a different woman. I am a woman who knows that she has a problem with Obama’s Zionism. I am a woman who doesn’t want to bomb Pakistan. I am a queer woman who thinks she deserves equal rights. Who wants universal health care for everyone. Who wants to end sweatshop labor. Who wants and hopes for a lot of change that Barack Obama may not care to make.

But today I have faith that the young Black or Latina or Chinese woman who will commit to that kind of change, the kind that I believe in, now knows that her time is arriving. And I realize that, at 26, I am one of those women. Si se puede!

O, let America be America again — 

The land that never has been yet — 

And yet must be — the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine — the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME — 

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Langston Hughes

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is an American living in Ontario, Canada, working on a PhD in theoretical physics.

Heather West

Why haven’t we heard from Bill Clinton on the election of Barack Obama? Were no journalists camped in front of his office in Harlem the night the first black man was elected president? This seems highly out of character for an attention addict like our former President. After a numerous google searches, I finally found this statement from Hillary, “Tonight, we are celebrating an historic victory for the American people. This was a long and hard fought campaign but the result was well worth the wait.” The full story can be found here. Pretty weak statement on the enthusiasm scale.

Clintonian reaction aside, I am proud to live in a country that elected a black man president. For Christ’s sake, it’s a recent development to let blacks play quarterback in the NFL! Though my fellow citizens are surfing on a wave of rainbows and unicorns, I can’t help but point out that it probably wouldn’t have happened if the economy hadn’t tanked, taking the retirement money of countless Americans down the drain. It’s a shame that it took such tragic circumstances to galvanize us into action, but the end result is the same, the long, ugly era of Republican rule is at an end. The real work is coming, and I’ll put my faith in Barack Obama because I believe he will surround himself with fine statesmen/women who’ll give him honest feedback and help find solutions to our country’s seemingly insurmountable problems.

Heather West is a publicist and freelance writer living in Chicago.

A. Zell Williams

There are three words that have never meant as much to me as they do now.

As I stood in a park smothered by love and fear, a new friend and I watch with an odd feeling between us. She is a foreign student from France fortunate enough to be in a country as they evaluated how they would enter the future. I was born in that country and had long before had become cynical, seeing that the rest of the people I was supposed to call fellow countryperson could naively be tricked, mislead, or feed lies about someone patriotism based on hands held over hearts or coat accessories.

But we shared the experience of it all. Children running from one another as their mother tried to get them to look at the high screen aglow with pundits and analyst. The flyers that littered the ground and hands reminding us that there would, indeed, be a tomorrow with much turmoil and injustice. The man who paced the same fifteen feet over and over for twenty minutes, fist clenched and tugged between his chest and the night in a manner that appeared out of his control.

I told myself I would watch from a friend’s house with the plan of sipping drinks, sheltered in my usual distain for crowds. However, a great teacher reminded me that there are few moments in which time becomes tangible. As much a part of you as your sex or skin and you can wear that moment throughout the course of your life. But time is also fluid. It can pass you by unless you are active in its capture so it can refresh you in days of drought and struggle.

I stood in a park wrapped with joy and hope. I stand at corner, not sure what awaits my turn. But now I can say — fear quenched and hunger fed — I was there.

A. Zell Williams is an award-winning playwright living in Chicago whose works include BLOOD/MONEY, The Woman I Live With, and A Motherless Child.

Kira Wisniewski

“10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1”

And the crowd goes wild!

I spent my election night in our nation’s capital watching the results party in an environmental non-profit office. (Side note: I was wearing an H2Obama shirt, which the enviro-kids loved, thinking it wasn’t legendary NY hardcore band.) The atmosphere was festive, the drinks were plentiful, the food was organic and the cups were made from corn. We watched with high anticipation the countdown until the polls closed in California and Obama surpassed the 270 votes necessary to become our president. Everyone in the room counted down the seconds New Years Eve style and then the room erupted in a moment of absolute happiness. I had chills for over 45 minutes. Then we took it to the streets. Right to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave where we joined by tons of other people jubilantly celebrating at the future home of Barack Obama. As the crowd started cheering “USA! USA!” I felt connected, proud and hopeful in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.

Kira Wisniewski currently lives just outside of our nation’s capitol and continually tries to do her part in fighting the good fight, and is currently working with the Capitol Letters Writing Center.

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