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a letter from the heartland
Resurrection of Story
By Ruth Yellowhawk
With the election of our 44th President, Barack Obama, stories are emerging, flowing freely alongside unrestrained tears. The stories go to the heart of America’s troubled past and her hope, and they began immediately. For the first time ever, I witnessed hardened journalists and brilliant news analysts, talking spontaneously and suddenly about grandma and grandpa, about mom and dad, about their own feelings.
Dr. Maya Angelou described the overwhelming pride she felt in her country as she allowed the soft tears to flow, while pointing out that this means so much to all Americans. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the always cool professor on Race and Ethnicity at Harvard, shared that, “My colleagues and I laughed and shouted, whooped and hollered, hugged each other and cried. My father waited 95 years to see this day happen, and when he called as results came in, I silently thanked God for allowing him to live long enough to cast his vote for the first black man to become president. And even he still can’t quite believe it!”
A reporter on CBS news with Katie Couric pulled a photo from his
office showing his relatives protesting in D.C. for the right to vote. Another
newsman, previously a benign “talking head” to me, became human, became real, as he
described his own upbringing with a Black dad
and a White mom. “Their union was illegal in 25 states,” he said, explaining the
many indignities they
suffered as a family - his dad forced to use separate bathrooms, the “take-out”
food eaten in a car separated from the communal grace of a familiar restaurant.
His dad was continually harassed
and once was arrested for simply being in the same car with his wife.
Miscegenation, a white concept denoting the mixing of the blood, deemed unpalatable by law, was the greatest stain, the huge taboo that he lived with daily, and now, with Barack Obama, his own sense of possibility had, in an instant, changed. He could begin to celebrate that his new President was beyond “Black,” beyond “White,” this he is a new hybrid altogether, a fuel efficient and quite sufficient human being.
Race brings all too often unspoken complexity to the fore. In a chapter in Sidney Poitier’s Spiritual Autobiography called “Why Do White Folks Love Sidney Poitier So,?” the veteran actor describes the complications of being successful in a White Man’s world, in a White Man’s America. Like Barack, folks wanted to know why he was not more confrontational, and more angry. He reflected that “Nobility” and the idea of portraying “Exemplary Human Beings” wasn’t always palatable to Black folks who were rising up against a system that was full of inequity. And such portrayals were far from the every day experiences of Whites.
For the film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn - Whites characterized as “liberal” and “enlightened” - put Poitier through excruciating tests designed to see if he was up to the task of taking on what Spencer’s character calls a “pigmentation” problem. While ultimately graciousness prevailed all the way around, the idea of entering into a creative partnership with a Black man, in which new paradigms were to be explored, was still foreign territory for these seasoned actors.
While this blizzard here in South Dakota has cocooned us into welcome reflection - I celebrate with my African-American Brothers and sisters that our paths have always been intertwined and connected. I want to hear these stories, of pain and denial, of family and complex feelings, of celebration and transcendence.
My best friend, a poet and professor at one of Ohio’s historically Black Colleges, Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, said simply: “ I just can’t believe it Ruth! Is this really America? Did my America do this?”
This is America. This is a place where war hero and loving Grandpa John McCain can celebrate what we are bearing witness to, can say to a mostly White audience, with some booing the election results, in a private gathering in Prescott, Arizona, “I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating [Barack Obama], but offering our next president our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.”
The people took to the streets of D.C., and filled them with pride, joy and unabashed patriotism. When this light cast from a collective clarity of purpose blazed in full force before them, the White House dimmed it’s own lights, succumbing to the grace of the Human Spirit.
What an unexpected opportunity has presented itself to us. To actually begin to listen - and to feel what so many have kept heretofore hidden, covered, and in many cases, plowed under the dark stained earth, is an unexpected gift. Such stories beckon, begging to be noticed like the watery unmarked graves of so many slaves, graves newly surfaced by the flow of water unleashed by recent hurricanes, and by this week’s torrent of tearful truths. These stories cannot be hidden any longer. Now is the time to really strive to understand the fortitude of the people who built this country, to fully witness the perseverance and dignity that Black Elders have always shared. After all, these are qualities we need to tap in the long days ahead.
Beyond our politics, beyond our entrenched views, beyond the fears about our economy, other stories and histories are rushing forth and we must begin to listen to these stories. This spontaneous and welcome “Truth and Reconciliation” process has begun naturally, offering with it an un-mandated chance for us to learn not only what our history really means for all of us but what our future holds for our young.
Perhaps these stories could even portend the long hoped for opportunity to begin to hear from Native Peoples, and to really strive to find a new rhythm for this land. There is a pulse that has quickened, a truth that has begun to resurrect, an understanding that a person and a nation can hold multiple world views as a way to remake itself, if we can only listen to what has been held inside us for so long.
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Comments
By Raoul
November 12, 2008 9:30 PM | Link to this
It is thrilling on the one hand to hear such unabashed joy at the prospect of our nation having elected it’s first ‘person of color’. On the other hand however, it is very dissapointing to realize that our nation’s struggles regarding race never seem to be viewed through the prism of the monumental sacrifice of those men who fought to their deaths to free the slaves. I say this because there has never been a sacrifice so manifestly honorable, so profoundly unselfish, so far beyond all prior humanity, that as I try to comprehend it today, it always seems beyond my grasp. Americans are the only people in the history of the world that have been willing to lay their lives down for the simple, yet sublime, notion that they can never be free until all of their people are free. The struggle for African-Americans has been deeply moving and awe-inspiring, yet I hope that one day, America will be honored and remembered as the people who ended slavery, not the ones who started it. One truly has to wonder if any other cultures would have, could have, made such a sacrifice as our prior generations made to end the hypocrisy and to set things right. I hope Ruth can ultimately see that our American struggle is not just relegated to minorities, but for all of us who are willing to uphold our values, our liberties, our ideals, and our marvelous Constitution. There are graveyards full of men who gave the last full measure to right a wrong they had no part in creating. I hope our nation will remember that, and I hope Obama will be a great President.By beastmomma
November 11, 2008 12:16 PM | Link to this
I also owe a lot to Ruth because I truly benefited from having you on WYSO as a programmer.By vick
November 11, 2008 11:33 AM | Link to this
Beastmomma, Ruth Yellowhawk is one of the most community minded people I have ever known. She is in South Dakota now but she is from Columbus and many Miami Valley residents remember the fine work she did for WYSO Public Radio in Yellow Springs. In 1993 it was Ruth who welcomed me to join WYSO as a programmer. I was there for ten years and I have Ruth to thank for that experience.By beastmomma
November 11, 2008 10:31 AM | Link to this
Very well said Vick!