Can’t You Feel A Brand New Day?

In announcing his “centrist, hawkish,” National Security team today, President-Elect, Barack Obama spoke, predictably, of “a new dawn of American leadership” and said, “the time has come for a new beginning.”

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

There is no question that the soaring rhetoric employed by Barack Obama, brazenly read from a TelePrompTer or not-so-discreetly placed index cards, reflecting not necessarily the views of the candidate, his handlers or scriptwriter, but of what those entities believe the nameless, poll-taking focus groups representing the “will of the people” want to hear, have been successful.  Seemingly obsessed with clock watching, “now is the time,” the “fierce urgency of now,” “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” and similarly chronologically based phrases have been used to great effect, evoking a spirit of awakening to a new day, a better time, a different place, a new beginning.  That these meaningless promises are so much total bullshit is also beyond question.  Yet, for a lot of Americans, especially black Americans, it’s just the kind of bullshit we have indeed been waiting for.

Negative images of black Americans, predominantly young black males, litter the nation’s information highways.  Coming of age in the era of the braggadocious boasting of “gangsta rappers,” alternating between lyrics full of swaggering, blustering claims of “wannabe ballers, shot callers”, and lamentations of their fears of early, violent death, to the buffoonish, minstrel-esque characterizations embraced by “sitcoms” and “standup comedians” as well as supposedly more mainstream, artistic, cinematic endeavors, it’s hard for young black men of this generation to find anything in our popular culture that reinforces anything positive about themselves and their lives.

Now, add to the mix a “black” man pursuing the highest office in the land, symbolically superimposing the image of positive potential over the media-generated “reality” of limited access to success and respect, and you have a powerful dynamic, whether the actual possibilities have increased, or the situation, for any but the new symbolic “black” man has really changed.  In other words, while their lives haven’t changed, the lives they can now allow themselves to dream about have.  Thus, even if this “symbol of possibility” sees fit to demean the very men he purports to represent in order to achieve their “shared” goal of ethnic respectability, it is excused as a necessary means to an end.  “Pookie” and “RayRay” will accept being called irresponsible ne’er-do-wells as long as it furthers the cause of their “alpha male leader to the Promised Land.”  Never mind the fact that the “Pookies and RayRays” AlphaMale needs to achieve his personal goals recieve no tangible benefit, the symbolic validation they get from basking in the glow of his victory is more than sufficient.  It is essential.

So, the “promise” of the “dream” is said to be upon us “now” if we “believe” that the “time” we “have waited” for our long held “hopes” for “change” to “come” “has arrived” now that “we” know “we can.”  Or, like schoolboys not invited to the snooty dance who are told by the one guy in the group who did get invited, “pretend you don’t know me, once I get in, I’ll open the door for you.  And even if I can’t, I’ll sneak you out some food and tell you about it, later,” more often than not, the buddies left outside with their noses pressed to the window, have had to content themselves with being friends with the guy who can get in.

Sadly, given the current landscape of black America, that is enough.

Even sadder still, the same con worked for many other Americans, too.  “I am the symbol of your hopes and dreams,” only works if people feel marginalized.  Fortunately for the Democrats, half the country seemed to be able to be convinced they felt that way after “eight years of the same failed policies.”  Empathetic identification goes a long way.

Those marginalized Americans, be they black, poor, progressive, “minority” or whatever, can expect more of the same “platitudes without promises” in the future.  For those whom such empty words were enough, they will soon find that’s all they get.  You got your “change,” the “promise” was fulfilled.  Now the work must be done.  Dreamers and hopers would only get in the way of actually governing.  So when the president you elected, faced with the same daunting, overwhelming problems presidents always face, responds in a similar fashion to the other men who served before him, be content with your dream.

The “new day” is indeed here.  Too bad it comes with the same old shit.