Barack and Roll

I had heard stories of the fervor in people’s eyes. Of a messianic aura surrounding him. But I didn’t see that fervor. Perhaps it was reserved for the devout closely entwined together at the front of the crowd, but I felt somehow excluded from that great spiritual revival. I wanted him to take me in the palm of his hand and talk directly to me. Maybe I wanted a savior. And he is good. But he’s not that good.

It’s a shame too the theatrics involved. An introductory ‘steps’ dance that added a touch of the bizarre, a long-winded testimonial from the introductory speaker that lent an element of the surreal, and, as the final build up to his appearance, a pep rally anthem blaring from the speakers, which, with each ‘Hey!’ shouted by the crowd, dusted the air more and more comical. I was there for his words. For my chance to witness the Second Coming. Not for some farcical, pandemic festival. But I will say that when he was finally allowed to speak, just to talk to us, he had the ability to win us back over. To disarm us. To unite us? Eh, let’s not get carried away. I s’pose the point of these things is to see the person. To see if you believe them. And I do. But I will confess that what I feel to be fake, what comes off to me as the wrong approach, is the constant allusion to race. The rally staged by both the University Democrats and an association for African-American students. The, forgive me, ludicrous war dance of a black fraternity to start the proceedings. And Obama’s own chronology of American history, summing up the struggle of the black American. It might just be me, and I could be wrong on this, but if America is truly ready for a black man to be the president, and I desperately hope that we are, then shouldn’t that, at the same time, mean that race is not the issue? That as a nation we can now see past race, or better yet, not see it at all. But maybe we’re not there yet. Maybe I’m just naïve.

Ah well. Who am I to be the judge of such things? It was a rally, we rallied, and he’s moving on. Has the world changed? Not yet. Not mine anyway.

But it’s oh so pretty to think it might.