dreams of obama

[niyad]

(a most interesting article by tom hayden, reprinted in the local independent paper)

AUGUST 21, 2008
Dreams of Obama
Transformational president or another disappointment? That's up to us

By TOM HAYDEN


Barack Obama, it is true, is a transformational leader. But he needs a transformational movement to become a transformational president.

He is transformational not only by his charisma and brilliance, but by embodying the possibility of an African-American being chosen president in the generation following the civil-rights movement. Whether he wins or loses, the vast movement inspired by Obama will become the next generation of American social activists.

For many Americans, the possibility of Obama is a deeply personal one. I mean here the mythic Obama who exists in our imaginations, not the literal Obama whose centrist positions will disappoint many progressives.

My wife and I have an adopted 8-year old "bi-racial" boy whose roots are African-American. My adult son is married to an African-American woman with roots in Jamaica and Costa Rica. Our family is part of the globalized generation Obama represents. What is at stake for our kids' future is real, palpable, not only political. Their future will very much be shaped by the outcome of this election. Millions of people in this country — and around the world — feel similarly affected.

Myths are all-important, as Obama writes in his Dreams from My Father. Fifty years ago, the mythic Obama existed only as an aspiration, an ideal, in a country where interracial love was taboo and interracial marriage was largely banned.


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http://www.csindy.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A28687