Barack Obama: A Promise Fulfilled

Tons of typically brilliant / insightful / East Coast elitist-communist-gay-jew stuff about Barack Obama and the final stages of the US Presidential elections in the Nov 17th issue of The New Yorker, of particular note being David Remmick's excellent article looking at the role race played in Obama's campaign:

'Speaking at a church in Selma, Obama was not a patriarch and not a prophet but the prophesied. "I'm here because somebody marched," he said. "I'm here because you all sacrificed for me."'

I like this idea, this idea that our joy at the election of Obama is, at it's core, the joy of a great promise fulfilled; that Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement promised something in the 60s, an ideal, a grand vision, and 40 years later Obama was able to step forward as the delivery of that promise...and now, here he is! Not a prophet, but the prophesied. I like that simple distinction.

What really hits home in his quote is the way he says "you all sacrificed for me"...well, of course, that isn't true in a literal sense, their sacrifices weren't made for him, their sacrifices were made so that it might be possible for somebody like him to get "here"...but his phrasing recognises that this is irrelevent: he has become The One, The Embodiment Of Their Dream. I guess the thing is, if the guy does have a bit of a Messiah complex, he has more reason than most.

Anyway, you can read Remmick's article HERE, and then go check out all the other wonderfully written, heathen, liberally biased journalism at the New Yorker while you're there.