While most of the western world embraces post-Christian values, and Japan has settled into something like a secular mysticism of the everyday, the American white south marches to its own drum, straight ahead with its absurd “small-town values” which seem to have something to do with God, fecund heterosexuality, and outdoor barbecue.
I’m visiting family down here, who are really quite open minded and curious, god bless their hearts (to use local parlance). But I realize just how entrenched most of the white population is. The piercing register of reaction on the subject of Barack Obama is proof. But what better way to pop a political thermometer in the ass of the south than to bring up Obama in Mississippi. He apparently hits all those good ol’ pressure points: race, religion, guns, and taxes. What I find amusing is that on most of these issues, Obama is not, publicly at least, very far left. He is certainly not calling for black revolution, he’s a devout Christian, he supported the Supreme Court in its decision to allow DC residents to have guns, and he’s not doing anything spectacularly big in changes to the tax code. I think, in the end, it all adds up to the otherness he brings to the picture, and it’s no surprise that white southerners are having just as much of a xenophobic reaction as they are. Another layer of irony is added when one realizes that it is, in fact, McCain who was born in Panama which is not a US state.
On a happier note, the African-American population down here seems, as far as I can tell, jubilant. From conversations with the woman next to me on the plane from San Francisco who grew up in Memphis to my old family neighbor, and loving surrogate aunt, B., people seem palpably excited about seeing a black man poised to win this election. I’m excited too!
It’s somewhat bittersweet, though, in the sense that his dark skin is even the issue that it is. The man is half white, after all, but the perceived need to even point that out is symptomatic of the hysterical state of things.
In my case, it is exactly his otherness, his ability to have the perspective of an outsider, that is most attractive to me. I am heartened by the fact that he is quoted as saying that one of the qualities he is looking for in a supreme court justice is that of empathy and an understanding of how the powerless live in this country. I am enamored with some of his earlier speeches which espoused good old hard leftist ideals of higher taxes on the rich and robust social programs for the poor. I love the fact that his father is from Kenya, and he has direct connection to that continent. And anyone who grew up in Indonesia can surely understand how to deeply relax and just stew in good food, amazing music, and spooky shadow puppetry. He is from multiple points of origin and I am thrilled that Americans could possibly, by a majority, agree with me that this is a really good thing. He runs a frighteningly tight campaign too; his messaging may be what most are reacting to rather than his postmodernity. But still, to feel as though someone I support actually could win the presidency is unusual and suspect. But if he pulls this off, I could certainly grow accustomed to it.
