There is something about reading this story in this
time. I mean, Invisible Man. Ralph Ellison. The wunderkind of letters who penned only the
one novel, prolific as it is.
A moment comes in Ellison’s story when our main character,
the nameless Brother, eulogizes the dead Tod Clifton. He advises the mourners to go home and mourn
no more as their mourning is impotent.
He chides them their inaction, their inability to organize and do
anything, their complacency and willingness to be subjugated.
Our nameless Brother, the Invisible Man, is a hayseed,
too. His every circumstance is a product
of innocence, which underscores the fact the world has always suffered a dearth
of real teachers.
I prefer the classics and Invisible Man is just one I never
happened onto previously. However, my
reading it coincided with the fact I have been in Chicago recently; the city of
brotherhood. The city of unions. The city of high values and organized
corruption. The people are angry. Every political discussion I was privy to, on
the ‘L,’ on the tv, in the office, at the barbecue with so many Eastern
Europeans, was derailed, derided, divisive, dehumanizing.
My friend said all the violence is happening in six square
blocks. Someone else referred to it as
black on black crime. The morning after
the President made a speech as part of the procession of speeches nominating
Hillary Clinton for President I told my classroom I was back in a bromance with
this President. I had endured a season
of disillusionment but now I was back. I
believed he was honorable. 80% of my classroom
was black women and they practically cooed at me. After all I was in the land of Obama.
Dee, in the front row, smiled slyly at me and confirmed she
would have been nowhere else but in front of her tv the night before. (That she
said that felt like an unexpected surprise, like someone coming up to me
standing in a long line and offering me a chair on wheels and a cool
drink. I needed to hear that from the
people and Dee was the people.) Dee
being short for Deahjahnay, which is of course a pretty name, French sounding
and unique and in no way obnoxious.
Other black women in the room nodded approval and I mentioned to Dee
directly that President Obama had somehow regained my respect through no fault
of his own but as my knowledge and insight grew and shrunk and changed and
morphed.
I am pissed about drones.
I don’t like that he appointed Federal Reserve Insider Timothy Geithner.
He was the product of a corrupt campaign finance reform system, too. He negotiated with unreasonable cavemen who
were themselves products of a corrupt campaign finance system and who acted
from every interest other than altruism.
In this speech however he reminded me why I voted for him
twice. He is after all, an honorable
man. He operated within a corrupt system
and ultimately succeeded beyond his rivals from the other side of the aisle,
they the purveyors of a cruel sense of justice and morality. He found a Xanadu of middle ground that
seemingly did not exist between the establishment of corporate America and the
moral right. He pulled socially to the
left. He followed through on some truly
noble ideas slam dunking gays in the military and re-opening relations with
Cuba. There is a real litany of good
things this President’s legacy will include.
On this night he spoke to me and a million other Bernie
Sanders supporters of campaign finance reform.
His words? He said, “Don’t
Boo. Vote.” Three fucking words and he overwhelmed my
ideas on this subject.
Like many I am so indignant at our system. How unjust.
How unrepresentative. Like so
many of the falsehoods I was given as an American born child here was another case
that might cause so many to throw their hands in the air and choose to just fly
off the rails or join the parade of soiled, silly, suckers of greed. “Don’t Boo.
Vote,” he said.
He is right. In the
end it does come down to more than voting.
We have to work at voting. We
have to get others to vote. We have to
work fiercely. We have to educate the
electorate. We have to invigorate the
masses and create a social responsibility that becomes a cultural sea
change.
The people are mad now at Hillary Clinton for being yet
another product of a corrupt campaign finance system. They don’t know how to direct their
anger. They’re so pissed about how
powerless they feel with their one vote-they are mad at the one person who has
been fighting for the values they espouse, (discounting a few errors in
judgment,) and who wins against the truly corrupt fascist pigs of and on the
right. It is as if they are mad at Hillary
Clinton for being good at what she does.
They’re mad at her for playing their game and winning as if they want
Donald Trump, or John Boehner, or Mitch McConnell, or Lindsay Graham, or any of
these other creeps who hate fags, detest welfare, love war, want to sell
America for their own personal gain, cheat to win, gerrymander, play to the
lowest common denominator, use fear, race bait, bible thump, parade around in
sheep’s clothing seeking whom they may next devour.
“Don’t Boo, Vote,” he said.
Guilty. I am guilty
as charged by the President of the United States. He got me.
I’m so indignant and yet, he is so right. (And she is too.) What a buffoon I am.
Not really. My error
is one of altruism and of not being satisfied with the slow pace of
progress. (I forgive myself. I’m so big like that.)
And so in a way we’re all hayseeds, we supporters of Bernie
Sanders. We are noble hayseeds. Everyone should be a hayseed but still, we
are hayseeds.
This voting President Obama refers to will happen. Campaign finance will change like Citizen’s
United will be overturned like a woman’s right to choose will be safeguarded
like our military budget will decline.
Eventually. Change is slow,
however in spite of corrections, moments of retrograde activity, things are
getting better and history shows us this is true.
Ellison’s great novel is as relevant today as ever.
Similarly, it is as colorful and engaging and modern as ever. The enmity between law enforcement and the
people they are meant to protect and serve remains a constant in our
society. The hayseed is invisible. Who listens?
Who knows? What’s the quote from
Baudelaire? “The best lack all
conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” (Okay, so I looked. It’s WB Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming.) I always took that to mean the pure of heart have nothing to feel convicted about or for, while the liars, cheaters, connivers, the unjust and unkind, the wicked and inglorious, petty, dishonest mother fuckers of the world tend to yell and scream because they're trying to convince you of something beyond fantastic. They are trying to sell you a bill of goods.
Brother is treated with indignity after indignity in The
Invisible Man. His best nature, his altruism, his earnestness, they’re all fodder for those who would devour. His intentions are golden at every turn but
he is seen, in the South and in Harlem, as breaking from cherished norms or
wanting to place himself above others.
Obama chided us in the same way Ralph Ellison chided us. Ellison understood what it meant to be
invisibly black in America, to be absorbed into a socio-cultural belief
system. Obama understood what it took to
ascend to high office in America. He
knew of what he spoke. “Don’t Boo. Vote,” he said rightly. He was telling the hayseeds in the room and
across America watching on their televisions, stop talking and go do. He must have had this awakening at one time
too, right? The day he decided if he
wanted to do something altruistic, if he wanted to help the under-served and
underrepresented black communities on the south side of Chicago he had best go
there and try to put some of his Harvard education into practice in the real
world for the purpose of helping people better their lives.
On a night that underscored the ultimate failure of the
Bernie Sanders campaign and feeling like an insignificant hayseed I understand
Obama’s message, (and Ellison’s too.) I
have to find ways to go do. We all have
to do that. Ours is a utilitarian
society and in so many ways the pressures of life, of economy, will pin us to a
station, but the true hayseed must find ways.
And so, Brother is a hero.
I admire him his gift of altruism.
I absolve him of whatever he has been accused of or blamed for. Moreover, I am so thankful for reading this
book now and not because some professor forced me to read it when I was 20-something
and a different sort of hayseed altogether.
Obama too, is a hero.
His dignity in the face of so much racism and ignorance is an example I hold
up to my kids when I speak of emotional intelligence. He is and has been for my family the
Commander of Emotional Intelligence in Chief.
His ability for candor, his grace under attack, his empathy, they all
were and are downright Presidential.
Hence why I adore him anew, in spite of the frustration I felt almost
from Day 1 of his Presidency.
