WHEN HOPE WON – OBSERVATIONS OF BARACK OBAMA

WHEN HOPE WON – OBSERVATIONS OF BARACK OBAMA

44th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

by Sam Cruickshank, Horiwood, Tu Mai Magazine, March 2009

The story of how I got to be here during perhaps the most pivotal time in American history’s survival as a nation is still a mystery to me. But, here I stand on Lady Liberty’s soil to give my account of witnessing the 44th President of the United States of America being elected.

Although I have been here for three years observing America’s political and entertainment scene, the last three months in Hollywood have been a blur. Their impact can be summed up in two inspiring words. Barack Obama.

To be a New Zealander of Maori descent who was born in Labasa, Fiji and yet raised in Whangarei City perhaps gave me a grounding to understand Barack Obama a bit better.

To be this particular multicultural New Zealander, who in his thirties, found themselves in America at this time can be summed up in one word. Surreal.

I am glad I was raised in a bicultural household with a multicultural and multi-faceted perspective, because there is no other way to begin to truly understand who Barack Obama is, than engaging with what he represents from a multi-dimensional perspective.

In her hit, I Decided (You Are The Him For Me), Pop star Solange Knowles sings of Obama in this way, ‘Your mind is like a prism, for God’s light to shine through.”

His story reads like a fairytale. It has shades of a Nelson Mandela emerging from a period of relative obscurity to become a great world leader. It is tinted with the colors of enduring hope. A hope that believes in a new America and in a better world.

But Barack Obama never had an easy life. He had a childhood where he had to be understanding, forgiving and highly adaptive to his ever changing surroundings. Intelligent empathy, perhaps best sums up his character to me.

His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was a white woman from politically conservative Kansas in Mid-West America. Republican country for sure. Later, in Hawaii, while enrolled in a degree in psychology, Anne fell for a Kenyan student, Barack Obama Snr. She was totally living on the edge in that moment, her American dream.

Friends describe Barack Snr as having a magnetic personality and being all about oratory in understanding and interpreting the world. The couple married in 1961 within months of meeting. At the time, Ann was already three months pregnant with her son.

When Barack was almost 1, his father moved to Harvard to get a Ph.D in economics while Anne stayed in Hawaii. His father would return to Kenya to rebuild it. Although Ann and Barack Jnr. were supposed to go to Kenya with him, knowing that Barack Snr had a wife from a previous marriage in Kenya, she decided against the move.

When Barack was almost 2, Ann returned to college. She relied on food stamps and her parents support to raise her son. Ann’s later marriage to a Vietnamese student Lolo Soetoro in1967 meant that Barack was raised on the outskirts of Jakarta in Indonesia.

He was the only foreign student of any kind in his school and at night his mother would comfort him by showing him books of the civil rights movement in America and playing him Mahalia Jackson records.

He grew up watching the jazz-tinged images of Martin Luther King Jnr leading a new revolution to the other side of enslaving entitlement in America. It is this perpetual problem of American life, that a young Barack Obama saw leaders making a stand against. It became cemented in him to always do the same.

In 1971, the year that I was born in Labasa Fiji, Barack Obama journeyed back home at 10 years of age to his birthplace of Honolulu to live with his grandparents. He would attend Punahou an elite prep school, that he had gained admission into on a scholarship. Obama was to have a Polynesian American worldview until he moved to the mainland to begin his advanced college education.

It is important for me to point out that this multicultural tapestry of his history and his precious Hawaii, while being raised in a home of loving white grandparents, is the fiber and the fabric of Barack Obama’s American dream of hope. It is as vast as the Pacific Ocean he once played in and looked out to each day as a child.

His worldview truly is colorless, perhaps even nationless and is more about the humaneness of different and eclectic people coming together to find strength in a unity of purpose. In this sense Obama’s gift of leadership reaches far beyond American shores and is also a great gift to the world.

He is undoubtedly the most culturally rounded American president that the world has ever seen. The embodiment of Abraham Lincoln’s dream that was echoed in Washington’s mall by Martin Luther King Jnr. that ‘all men are created equal.’

Obama most memorably came to my attention, when I watched Oprah Winfrey transform herself from the most popular talk show host in the world, to become an animated cheerleader in a freezing cold hall in Iowa, as she gave her heart, soul, fame and personality to back a young black man in the greatest political race in America. Oprah did this like a joyful angel presenting someone more important than herself to her nation. She was like Maya Angelou doing poetical-politico TV. Wild!

It was a radical Oprah! She was so alive about this one man named Obama. She put her whole name, credibility, integrity, her great popularity and her very self on the line for Barack. It was both fascinating, touching, giddying, risky and exciting to watch.

Rarely did the world see their most favorite billionaire, outside the context and comfort of her interviewer’s couch, her lucrative TV studio and without her Oprah branding on your TV screen plastered over her many A-List guests image. Yet, here she was standing amidst a hall full of Iowa people being so excited. It was powerful.

It is a fact of American culture that the American people love and expect to be entertained and to see a show turned on for them. Only then, do they really pay attention. So Oprah’s role was pivotal to Barack’s political life. Oprah did not disappoint and she was his fairy godmother that announced his attendance as a future young King to the ball of the world stage.

It was truly the first “wow” moment in public consciousness as to who Barack Obama really was and perhaps the single greatest endorsement as to the caliber of the man. I rewatched Oprah, the next day on YouTube about 20 times, wiping my eyes from a steady stream of tears.

They were to be the tears of a healing river that America would cry too as Obama began his journey from the cocoon of past and recent American disappointments into a future that was carried only on the wings of hope and the winds of much needed change.

But Obama first had to win the right to lead his own party. He was battling intense criticism within the democratic party of a wave of polite negativity. ‘You’re too young, wait another 4 years,’ ‘it’s Hilary Clinton’s turn.’ And of course, the unspoken one, ‘the time is not yet quite right,’ meaning the issue of his skin color, perhaps. All seemingly vital concerns to the Democrats.

Yet in his heart, he knew his time was now. A famous hockey player once advised him to not go towards the puck, but to head towards where the puck should be. It was this strategy that Obama set out to do, in the hope that his party would catch up, to where he and their nation needed to be heading.

The strategy worked and with the eventual backing of both the Clinton and Kennedy families with their great political legacies behind him as past Presidential entities, he went forward with the Democratic party’s full support and unified blessing.

On Election Day, I like many others in America found myself numbed by the harsh sting of recession. Yet no one was calling that uncomfortable stinging feeling that. It had become hard to breathe freely. There was a restrictive feeling in the air. Liberty was being eroded both economically and in the morale of the average American.

We had all been fed so many lies by the Bush administration. On the news we were being told that we were not in a recession. Americans were told to leave their money in the stock market because things would come right. It was like being stuck in mass deception. Neuroses simmered underneath the surface, everywhere you’d turn. It was volatile times.

I remember the day that George Bush read from an autocue that the American people should give more money to government to bail the country out of its temporary set backs. I remember thinking that there was a sense that something was radically wrong.

My American friends around me reluctantly accepted the news, as being what good citizens of America should do, when asked by their government. It would cost each American $450 more in their taxes. Clearly to me, the deception of false security was pulled firmly over their eyes and it scared me. It was to be the Bush administration’s final major drawdown and extraction from the American people. It was like watching extortion go unchallenged.

I felt like a foreign dissenter, in this great land that was supposedly the pinnacle of Western democracy, questioning Bush’s monetary appeal before their eyes. For the first time, I was feeling unsafe and unwelcome in America. Our American brothers and sisters were reeling in a state of shock. They were shutting down and Bush’s greed ridden and grabbing spirit was taking over them and they were no longer being inclusive but were in self preservation mode of survivalists.

I witnessed a people battling for their present and their future that had been whisked away from them, right from underneath their eyes. You had to let them have time to register their emotions at their losses, and then come to their senses and good graces again. Because although temporarily blighted by loss and fear, America is a great nation. It knows no other way to be than to be great. That’s who she is.

However, the shock that they had actually been leaderless (in spirit), for quite some time and were waking up to that rude fact was horrifying. That fact, more than the loss to their economy hurt them a lot.

During his appeal on TV, Bush almost looked like a greedy addict to me while he read the autocue lines. It was like he’d been scripted to say the appeal by someone else. The Presidential seal sitting behind him convincingly in the Oval office, made him look so credible while he parroted words in the capacity of a President. The powers of symbols were in operation, but they were devoid of a conscience for the good of the people they claimed they served.

It was like Bush was told to say those words by his advisors; otherwise his benefits package would be at risk when he got out the other side.

The addictive personality behind Bushes behavior was like someone who had always been so entitled and was used to getting the thrill of entitlement that someone who had been socialized as an addict demanded and had always relied on and needed when they wanted it. McCain also exemplified this brash and arrogant spirit also. Bush would hold all ransom to get what he felt was necessary out of them.

He was a metaphor in that moment, for a country spiraling out of control, living way beyond their means, living in houses that they could not afford and yet still wanting the ideal lifestyle of luxury that they were convinced was rightfully theirs.

It is this spirit of greed and bullying ‘I will have it because I deserve it’ even if I can’t afford it, that is the sickness of America. It is this social and cultural stigma that Barack Obama would inherit to have to fix, correct, intervene and have to tame. It is everywhere here, still.

When the stock market plummeted weeks later and many Americans lost 50% of everything that they’d ever worked hard for their whole lives, they began to crawl out of deception and into a new reality. It was time to pull in the belt and start again and rebuild. Many Americas who had played the stock market, had forgotten how to work with their hands and fear set in.

The stage was set for a savior, in Barack Obama. Even the most racist, hardened capitalists were beginning to take more notice as to who he was, beneath the color of Obama’s skin and any prejudices towards this man with a different spirit.

It was a victory Obama had been waiting for before he could fully have a voice of authority for his country. The shackles of racism needed to come off his audience’s eyes. It was equally as sad as it was exciting to see America waking up as to who their next President should be. The backdrop to his presidential hand over could not have been any more epically worse for Barack.

Obama was to inherit the largest debt of any President in this country’s history and George Bush came in with one of the country’s highest surpluses. In eight years, America had been forced into historical decline.

One greedy man looked after his greedy comrades and sold out America’s grandchildren to repay his debt of gross mismanagement. It pains me to write that, but this is the current state and story of America.

Obama’s stimulus plan, borrows off The World Bank to get America up and going again. It is money that the grandchildren of Obama’s generation will have to repay. This occurred because of the Bush administration’s poor management towards the average Americans interests.

Perhaps in another country, such a man would have been court marshaled and bought to account. Bush was not. There were little ramifications for Bush’s actions both in America and also the havoc he has caused in the world. I don’t know if that should be legal, but in George Bush’s case, so it has been so.

When Barack won the election, a sound of applause like that of a Mexican wave at a football match, spontaneously arose out of all of the multi-storied apartments like a rolling blanket of praise ascending above the City of West Hollywood. It was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard being made by an entire city in unison. It was pure, spontaneous and not orchestrated and was a moment that made me cry.

America, like a lover who had been too often deceived and abused through a political rhetoric of false promises; she had now rescued herself through her democratic vote and had begun to be revived. Her trust was shattered, but she knew she had to love again and put her faith in a leader that was more trustworthy. Safety began to cautiously return to American neighborhoods and households.

That night I received 86 different emails from New Zealanders and friends from around the world wanting to know what it was like. ‘It’s very overwhelming’ was my reply.

The most memorable email came from Reina Whaitiri, one of my lecturers and mentors at Auckland University who had recently returned to New Zealand from several years at the University of Hawaii where Barack’s mother had first met his dad in academic circles.

Now in her sixties, Reina’s email said: “In all of my life, I think this is the most significant day I’ve ever witnessed in the history of the world.” I pondered those words as the celebrations continued long into the night in every household.

A new king and queen had been chosen by the people. And yes, in case we ever did get it wrong in our humble, funny, self deprecating Kiwi manner; America really is an empire and is a real kingdom in every way on the earth.

On her talk show the next morning, Oprah held up a copy of the Chicago Tribune and proclaimed “Mr President!” loudly to the world. Her tee shirt proclaimed, ‘Hope Won!” It was a cute media moment.

The American people began to embrace their new leader. Although they were all being polite, people could not wait for Bush to leave the Whitehouse sooner. It was uncomfortable and yet understandable to observe them hold their tongues. American people do have a lot of manners underneath it all. They are predominantly a very dignified people.

So, they bided their time patiently by going to the newsstands and buying every single magazine that they could find of Barack and Michelle Obama, Malia and Sasha who plastered the covers of tabloids everywhere. America has a culture that likes to idolize images of its leaders, so they can be emulated faster in a consumer culture.

Magazine buying for a dose of Obama Hope became our favorite obsession, while we waited for Bush to exit. Obama magazines were everywhere! I know, I spent the most I’ve ever spent on magazines, $100, in just one day and it felt fabulous! I did that several times. It was thrilling. The Obamas sell big time.

When Inaugural Day occurred, record crowds flew, bussed, drove into Washington DC, to be a part of this historical moment. Who can forget the 2 million plus people in attendance lining the historical mall in the nation’s capitol. Wow!

The A-List stars who had helped Barack and Michelle Obama in their election bid by mobilizing the young, the African American vote, women and Hispanic voters to go to the polls were rewarded by America’s new royalty on their big day of being sworn in.

Who can forget U2 and Bono performing, with Sting from the UK too and of course, the glamour songstress of the moment, Beyonce Knowles singing America The Beautiful and proclaiming to America, that “We Are One” at the end of her song. The musical prophets of America’s pop cultural life helped heal and unify the rifts across the nation, especially in the Republican states as the ambassadors of pop serenaded their new American king and queen.

Later that night, as Beyonce crooned Etta James’ golden hit, At Last, for the President and First Lady’s historical first waltz; holding each other close and whispering in one another’s ears, Barack and Michelle Obama romanced and wooed America to their side. I like many other people here, must have watched that on YouTube about 20 times too.

A warmth in human relationships as opposed to a lust for more material things began to return to America’s hearts and perspectives in that moment as the two danced. It was like watching a Disney movie being created as they danced.

Then the Obamas had to go and dance nine more times at nine other balls around the Capitol in their honor. One is never enough; it is so American to do things large. There are 52 distinct states that make up this nation, so ten balls is nothing really. At least that’s the logic of a plethora of choices that this nation likes to present and offer.

The closest media event I have witnessed in my lifetime as significant was perhaps Prince Charles and Lady Dianna’s wedding when I was a kid. The whole world was watching and joy was felt around the globe.

At the recent Grammy Awards, we saw a new America emerging and expressing her nationhood through musical performance. The Jonas brothers crooned with veteran Grammy winner, Stevie Wonder. Young white Americans were showing respect to a black leader of the musical entertainment community.

Jay-Z rapped over Coldplay’s piano and lyrics. Robin Thicke loaned his vocals to Lil Wayne’s New Orleans rap flavor. TI and Justin Timberlake performed their new hit together. They urged the audience that the old America was ‘Dead & Gone.’

All throughout the night, white artists were seen to be serving the voices and talents of black artists in their collaborations maturely, sensitively and intelligently. They were taking more of a back seat or shared role and letting the black artist lead.

Is this the new America? I asked. It is one of restraint and respect for one to another. It was different, if not perhaps a little bit too culturally sensitive and PC.

We saw a model of socialization for American life on Grammys night through its musical displays of art and culture, both educating and celebrating how citizens should respond to one another and collaborate together in this new era. It was interesting.

UK singer Adele, was given a Grammy Award as were Coldplay, sending out a message to the important nonAmerican allies of this nation that their support was both valued and needed to move forward into the future.

It was an unusual surprise that on Grammy’s night, the suggestion of a Senator for Art & Culture should be appointed in Washington was put forward to President Obama. Perhaps indicating that President Obama is going to have a more hands on approach in the future direction of Art & Culture in America. Already, you feel like he has and is, somehow.

He commands the respect of all of the music and entertainment industry greats. Jay-Z is like Obama’s silent conductor of disseminating important messages through popular culture and music. Beyonce’s latest album, I Am Sasha Fierce, is not only named after one of Obama’s daughters, but the lyrics of several of her songs could be directly attributed to Barack Obama.

At the NAACP Awards that preceded The Grammys, Beyonce performed her hit Halo. As she sung of Barack Obama’s Halo effect in the world, images of the civil rights movement’s historical journey were displayed on screen behind her in black and white as Beyonce sang. The only color image came in the form of Barack Obama’s image as she closed out the song.

Beyonce’s subliminal message being; you bought us out from a journey of struggle and fear into a world of enlightenment and full color. Oscar winner, Forest Whitaker also speaks a lot of Obama’s ‘enlightenment in the dawning of a new age.’ In his Inaugural speech, Obama defined this new age, why it had come upon America and how it would evolve:

“Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet…

… We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.”

He is a man who has a penchant to tame and temper things. In the Polynesian way, he speaks mythologically like Maui, who set out to tame the sun. Being of Polynesian descent and origin, I am sure we will watch this man with great interest.

Thankfully though, Barack Obama cannot tame his wife, neither does he need to or seek to. He is famous for saying on nationwide TV, “When mama’s happy. We all are happy,” perhaps indicating that no one tells Michelle Obama what to do, including him.

Undoubtedly Michelle Obama is Barack’s ace jewel in his crown as The 44thPresident of the United States. Colleagues of the couple have told me, that Michelle always had higher grades than Barack at Harvard Law School and that it was he that amorously pursued her. Apparently, it wasn’t easy for him to win her over either but thankfully he did. Michelle always earned a higher salary than him until she had the children. Most importantly Michelle Obama knows how to keep Barack grounded by speaking the truth in love.

Michelle once rolled her eyes in a 60 Minutes prime time interview and told him off on nationwide TV, when he exaggerated slightly that he would be doing his own dishes to save water and excessive energy costs in the Whitehouse.

Honesty is Michelle Obama’s first and only language of the heart and she offers him the stability of a wife and mother that he perhaps never found so solidly in his own mother when he was a child. You get the sense that Michelle Obama is going to ensure that he’s always comfortable to remain himself and does not become an over inflated construct of someone more important than what he will naturally grow into as a leader. There’s safety in that.

In that second of absolute frankness, Michelle Obama reaffirmed a trustworthy quality in her that America needs and wants in a First Lady to keep their President level headed. Michelle Obama is stunning in her intelligence, ability as a strategist, her integrity, her love for her husband, children and nation and her passion for education to transform her nation’s imaginations. She’s the black Jackie O of America.

From what I’ve observed, I like them both a lot so far. America is in the inspiring and capable two hands of Hope. May a new era of good leadership and new courage also arise in New Zealand too and inspire the world. Let’s work our Polynesian friendly  mindsets too and be proud to do so, like Hawaii’s favorite son, Barack Obama is doing right now for America. In our fertile and diverse lives are the seeds of eternal greatness. Tu Mai Ora y’all!

ENDS

February 18, 2009 | Categories: Entertainment Celebrity News | Tags: American Politics, Ata Te Kanawa, Barack Obama, BEYONCE, California, Chicago, Coldplay, Etta James, Fiji, Hawaii, Horiwood, Iowa, Jay-Z, Jonas Brothers, Justin Timberlake, Lil Wayne, Mahalia Jackson, Malia Obama, Martin Luther King Jnr, Michelle Obama, New Zealand, New Zealand News, ObamaDrama, Oprah, Oprah Winfrey, Reina Whaitiri, Robin Thicke, Sam Cruickshank, Sasha Obama, Solange, Solange Knowles, Stevie Wonder, TI, TU MAI Magazine, Washington DC, World Politics | Leave A Comment »