Obama's rise: You couldn't make this stuff up
This week's column.
Not that long ago, the best-known and longest-running positive depiction of a black family aired at 8 p.m. on Thursday nights.
Cliff and Claire Huxtable presided over a colorful brood of good-looking and precocious kids.
Cliff was a doctor, Claire a lawyer. And they lived in a New York brownstone where the crisis of the week typically consisted of Theo’s new girlfriend or Rudy’s cold.
There were no pimps or drug pushers or sassy sistuh-talk. No shiftless older brother yelling “Dy-no-mite!”
Too good to be true, even in TV land?
Then, meet the Obamas.
Both Mom and Dad are trained lawyers. Dad also is a U.S. senator and, before that, was a state senator and before that, editor of the Harvard Law Review.
And, by the way, Dad becomes president of the United States.
No, really.
Whatever your politics or political party, the dramatic outcome on Nov. 4 was as monumental as it was improbable.
It says something special about the promise of this country — that all things are possible in these United States of America. And I mean all things.
Try pitching this story line as a sitcom plot:
A black guy whose mother was a Kansan and whose father is a Kenyan is reared by his white grandmother.
(We’ll cast him with a svelte, handsome actor, in the Dick Van Dyke mold, and throw in a pair of Alfred E. Neuman ears so he’s not too perfect.)
Despite a sometimes troubled youth, he makes it to college, then to law school at Harvard. He weds a classy looker named Michelle, who also holds a Harvard law degree.
The marriage produces two adorable daughters with ready-for-prime-time smiles and a natural talent for one-liners. (Cue sentimental “awwwwwwws” from studio audiences, especially for the littlest daughter.)
After less than one term in the U.S. Senate, Dad decides to run for president.
He takes on the most powerful name in the Democratic Party and beats Hillary Clinton in a series of bruising primaries. (For comic relief there’ll be an episode featuring him bowling gutter balls and Hillary guzzling shot glasses of Crown Royal with Regular Guys in an Indiana bar. Hilarity ensues.)
He takes on a Republican war hero whose running mate is the female governor of Alaska, and a dead-ringer for Tina Fey (is she available?) and who talks exactly like Frances McDormand in “Fargo.”
Then he beats his GOP rival by winning states Democrats are not supposed to win: Florida, Indiana, Virginia, Ohio and even North Carolina. (Too much of a stretch? OK, we’ll strike North Carolina from the list.)
For the season premiere there’ll be a Very Special Episode about the puppy Dad promised the girls once they’ve moved into the White House.
The following week, it’s revealed that Dad’s distantly related to Dick Cheney. (Remember how well the “Luke, I am your father” bit worked in “Star Wars”? )
Of course, Colin Powell and Bruce Springsteen can do guest turns for the May sweeps.
And did I mention that Dad’s full name is Barack Hussein Obama?
Reality, in this case, is stranger even than science fiction.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
And, while the only certainty that lies ahead is uncertainty — two wars to resolve, a foundering economy, an energy crisis, Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and God only knows what else — the power of what happened on Nov. 4 is undeniable and should inspire every single one of us.
It tells our white brothers and sisters that, yes, there is much more to black candidates than blackness.
That you can back a black man, passionately, for president — not out of liberal guilt — but because you genuinely see him as the best person for the job.
It tells African Americans to keep dreaming and working hard and loving a country that doesn’t always seem to love us back. That, despite its foibles, it truly is the greatest nation on earth. And that racism still lurks in dark corners but should be viewed as a challenge, not an excuse.
Finally, it especially should resonate with one of the most fragile segments of the population, black males, who spend too much time on street corners and in prisons and too little in classrooms and board rooms.
It tells them that there is more to their dreams than sports and rap music. That they can be whatever they work for.
If it happened for him surely it can for them.
But only in America.
Comments (4)
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Yes, anything is possible for a black man. However, women still don't seem to have a shot at the highest office in this land or to fair treatment by the media. After black men got the right to vote in this country it took another 50 years for women to get that right. Let's hope it doesn't take that long to put a woman in the White House.
Posted on November 9, 2008 11:01 AM
Hillary Clinton very much had a shot. She also carried baggage, including her husband. There's only one president elected every four years, so the chances of becoming president are very slim for any individual. Just as many people marvel at how Barrack Obama managed to win, at least as many others marveled at how George W. Bush managed to win. Twice. Hillary Clinton came very close to receiving her party's nomination, closer than the previously closest African-American candidate, Jesse Jackson. Jesse Jackson and Hillary Clinton were arguably more polarizing than Barrack Obama was, at least in his campaign. I can imagine us not being too far from a female president or vice-president. The final two U.S. senatorial candidates for North Carolina this year were women, resulting in the baton being passed from the first female U.S. Senator from North Carolina to the second one in our state's history. Beverly Purdue did not run that impressive a campaign, but she still managed to beat one of the better Republican challengers for the N.C. governor's office in recent history. My sense is that voters are generally open-minded about electing women to positions of power. It just needs to be the right woman. And the right surrounding circumstances. Things just didn't happen to work out in Clinton's favor this time around, and she shares at least some of the blame for that, as do those who helped with her campaign.
Posted on November 9, 2008 12:26 PM
No matter how one might feel about president-elect Obama we can all be thankful that he vanquished Hillary Clinton.
Posted on November 9, 2008 2:40 PM
On the other hand, Jen, there have been many positive strides for women, including a growing number of female governors, including our own in North Carolina's newly elected Beverly Perdue.
Women are beginning to dominate state and local judicial elections as well.
Two of the three biggest Triad cities have women as mayors.
And back again on the national stage, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin are stars in their parties and may wind up on the presidential stage again, possibly one day running against one another.
Posted on November 11, 2008 6:28 AM