Inauguration Journal: Epilogue

A letter to Teju Cole:

Dear Teju,

Well, the euphoria is behind us and the hard work just beginning. I’m sorry you weren’t able to be in Washington, to experience the crowd and to feel more American than you’d probably admit to. On the other hand, I suspect you would have felt a part of yourself standing to the side, as I did. I didn’t find the inauguration as moving as election night, nor did I share the intense catharsis so many people there seemed to feel. I guess I was aware of something else out there, outside the security fences ringing the Mall, kept at bay for that one day but still malevolently present on the periphery. Here we were, a crowd of tree-huggers and children of slaves, old draft dodgers and peaceniks, and the poorest of the poor – a mob of outcasts and sinners for sure – who for this day had been passed graciously through the gates to stand as witnesses on the frozen turf of this symbolic home-ground of democracy.

And yet the memory returned, of another frigid day, not long ago in New York, when we were herded into pens rather than being allowed to march in protest of the soon-to-be Iraq War, controlled by mounted police, snipers on the rooftops and helicopters overhead. And how many others in that inauguration throng had marched in Selma, or endured the dogs and water cannons and rat-infested jails – those lucky ones who didn’t suffer worse? During Vietnam our photos had been taken, our names put on lists, our passive bodies carried out of college administration buildings.

The forces that held the hoses and threw the tear gas canisters and shot the students have not, by any stretch of liberal imagining, vanished just because someone who seems familiar and sympathetic has taken over the chief office of the land.

This is no time to be naive.

After the election, Teju, you wrote that to you “there's nothing sadder than what Jesus called ‘white-washed sepulchres.’ You wondered about the “psychic weight of the more than 600,000 people we've sent to an early grave in Iraq,” and the plight not just of the middle class, but of the truly poor. I wonder too.

I wondered about it on this trip as we drove past some of New York’s high-security prisons, part of a system that now houses 1 in every 100 male Americans – and 1 in 8 of all black Americans. What kind of karma is being generated not only by Guantanamo, but by our own domestic prison worlds behind the razorwire and moats? Or in the military hospitals where returning veterans who’ve lost limbs, spouses, and sanity languish, mostly forgotten by fans singing God Bless America during the seventh-inning stretch? I also think about the fact that in my 56 years of privileged white life I've only had two close friends who were black - you and one other - and the unspoken fact that some white Washington-area residents stayed away from the inauguration simply because they were afraid.

But the flags, the bands, the banner-strewn facades, the pat phrases about American exceptionalism – my God, I’m sick to death of nationalism! Ultimately, the rhetoric has to change past those things “every senior politician has to say,” as the media puts it. Maybe there’s a chance it will. Maybe one day there will even be room for some humility, some remorse, some redemption.

(click for large view)

Walking home from the inauguration on the eerily-empty highway, we ended up walking right through the deserted parking lot of the Pentagon, past the Pentagon Memorial on the side where the plane hit, and finally up the hill past Arlington National Cemetery. From the rise there, crowned by the new Air Force memorial, you see an ironic panorama: the rows and rows of white military grave markers on the left, the fortress-like Pentagon of the generals and admirals on the right, and in-between, a gleaming white phallic symbol.

The problem is that I’ve seen too much in my lifetime, and it’s broken down my idealism...not into cynicism, which is like death, but into realism about both human nature and political cycles. Our capacity for greed and violence is as boundless as our capacity for love, and I sometimes see those being the two weights in blind Justice’s balance. We fall in love, and out of love; the scales swing one way and then the other. Incrementally, society has become somewhat more humane over history but for every step toward freedom, liberty, equality and compassion there are opposing forces willing to fight to the death to hold onto the status quo.

The day after Obama’s election, we received quite a few emails from friends saying, in different ways, “you can come back now.” I understood where that was coming from, and appreciated the sentiment, but we didn’t leave our birthplace because of one man, but because of the pervasive values and choices of a society. The ascendancy of another, far better man isn’t going to make us abandon our new home in this gentler, more self-reflective place where we feel able to be citizens of the world and not merely of one nation, even though I am and always will be American, and want to do my part. I fervently hope his keen intelligence and deep convictions about right and wrong will be able to withstand the battering he’ll begin to receive from those hell-bent to resist change. The look on his face, as he came down that corridor toward the sunlight and the waiting crowd on Tuesday, is for me the most haunting image from the day. He gets it, but do we?

love,

Beth

Comments

[Rachel Barenblat]

A gorgeous essay, Beth. I feel privileged to be in on this conversation.

I am learning how to be hopeful again, how to feel ownership of and pride in my country again, after eight long years of feeling alien(ated) and alone. But this essay raises good points I would do well to remember. For that I thank you.

[dale]

(o)

[-s]

I must admit that as I watched the inauguration from the safe distance of north of the US-Canada border, I wondered how those who had voted for McCain, and before him for Bush, were feeling as they watched the inauguration. Were they also feeling euphoria, or was it rather anger or bitterness or some other more malevolent feelings? Those who base their position on political dogmas are unlikely to see nuance or the possibilities that hope and a change in leadership open up. You are right, the cultural problems remains, as do the economic and social problems that structure American society. I wish my American neighbours well in the coming years….

Peace.

[Dave]

Thanks for bringing up the prison-industrial complex. It always amazes me when people try to claim we've outlawed slavery. (Great post over-all, too.)

[Kaycie]

Realism smack dab in the middle of the reddest state in the nation is a bit harsh. I find myself wanting to hold on to inauguration day, to celebrate each small change for the better.

Last week we bought a new television to replace the one my youngest destroyed with a Wii. The man who delivered it commented on some local news which I had missed, glued to the inauguration as I had been the day before. I told him so, and he said that he was afraid for our country, that he had voted for Bush and thought that he had basically done a good job in office. People confound me. I honestly don't know how a thinking person could believe Bush basically did a good job.

I could not get that man out of my house fast enough.

[Jean]

Movingly put. I'm proud and grateful to know US Americans like you and Teju, and to know there are so many like you in the great country that overshadows my poor perverted little England. Obama gives me hope. You give me hope.

[David@Montreal]

Beth
'this gentler, more self-reflective place where we feel able to be citizens of the world and not merely of one nation' is blessed that you and Jonathan make your lives with us.

and the world is blessed by your courage to live with paradox and ambiguity without despair

a powerful post

[Cat]

This was a deeply moving and strengthening post for me, Beth. I do feel hopeful but you're wise to point out that the forces of greed and fear are still strong. We must stay vigilant and shine light where and how we can. It seems to me we have to fight a battle in ourselves too, that we have to choose faith over and over again. As you say, cynicism will not take us where we want to go. I spent a lot of time in the black community when I in my twenties as my then husband was a blues musician. The laughter and strength of spirit changed me forever. I was thrilled that we caught a little of that spirit in the benediction—there was the humor, the hope, the forgiveness and the knowing. Thanks so much for this.

[Martine]

That image of him walking in the corridor has stayed with me as well. I'll never forget that expression and the way he held his head.

[Maggie Leininger]

I came across your blog while cruising for images for my art history course I am teaching. I attended the inauguration as you did and must have been rather close to you too. I can't believe this day finally arrived. I grew up in a racially mixed family, moved with my mother to S.C. when quite young to live next to the KKK where I couldn't mention my black step-mother or bi-racial cousin out of fear. I remember vividly the day I learned about what the KKK stood for and what that meant for me. I, like so many, worked hard to campaign for this man, cried on election day from overwhelming love of my fellow countrymen and danced on cloud 9 through the city streets of Chicago following the election. Yes, you are right, we have so much to do, and we must get it. Thanks for your post and check out my blog at http://artivention.blogspot.com/ where I have images of a activist art project for the Guantanamo detainees. An artist just trying to make a difference!