The Coming Year of Complex Intersections
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As anticipation surges for January 20th and the possibilities for an Obama Administration, short-term solutions to long-standing problems dance illusively and elusively before our eyes: we did not get to this precipice overnight and we will not get off of it soon.
Tens of thousands of families are newly unemployed; home foreclosures are non-stop; businesses crumble; poverty and racism endures; new war rages in the Middle East—the economic-political chaos at home and worldwide is nothing short of sordid. Yet we hope, even audaciously.
For poor people these times are, of course, nothing new. Poor folk and poor neighborhoods and communities have seldom been on any political radar screen or in any political master plan. It’s important to remember that as headline-generating tough times reach into the middle class and even pare down some of the super-rich for whom “the system” has always worked. In light of all the pressing realities of the day, it’s more unlikely than ever that poverty and racism will be high on the national agenda—all the more reason why efforts must be redoubled to address, indeed attack, those harsh realities in our midst.
2009 marks several intriguing observances: the 200th (same day) birth of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, and the 150th year since the defining Lincoln-Douglas debates in their race for the Senate. While there are, of course, countless other important observances, these particularly remind us of the enduring legacy of unresolved social, cultural, racial, economic, religious, and political battles that have been at the core of American identity for generations. This is a year of complex intersections at which these old battles are not simply recognized, but continue to be waged. As we look forward to new possibilities we cannot ignore the fact that feet anxious for forward movement are still stuck in old mud.
When President Obama speaks this year at the national celebration of Lincoln’s birth, history will weigh heavily on the day. Commentators and pundits will lift up the historic moment and rightly hail its significance. They will, however, not be ready to remind us of the stark and enduring pain of racism in a nation that has long-held to whiteness as the mark of true belonging—pain that to this day, for example, marks Black teenagers for violence and death at epidemic proportions. This is the reality of the day, the new year. Complex intersections to be navigated, made straight for the journeys ahead.
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