The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama, II

On Friday I discussed the first half of President-Elect Obama's 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, which I read in the week before the election in order to better understand the man I would be voting for, and reinvigorate my passion for seeing him in the White House. The early chapters of the book lay out his vision of the political process, the purposes of government, and the supremacy of the Constitution. The middle of the book is dominated by his now familiar domestic policy agenda, focusing on education, energy, and economics.

Obama follows these chapters with a focus on two traditional minefields for Democrats: faith and race. It is in these areas that he has probably shown the greatest innovation. He has demonstrated the possibilities of common ground and the power of a progressive agenda on these issues in a way that no other Democrat, even those who are great leaders on policy matters, has been able to achieve. First, his focus on faith, which was a major area in which his campaign deliberately departed from those of Kerry and Gore:

When we abandon the field of religious discourse--when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome--others will fill the vacuum. And those who do are likely to be those with the most insular views of faith, or who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religiosity has often inhibited us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem is rhetorical: Scrub language of all religious content and we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice. Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address without reference to "the judgments of the Lord," or King's "I Have a Dream" speech without reference to "all of God's children." Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.

He goes on to emphasize that the "failure as progressives to tap into the moral l underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical," but "may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in addressing some of our most urgent social problems." Like Robert Reich, Obama believes that the mantle of public morality is one that can be harnessed to advance the progressive agenda.

His perspective on race, discussed so eloquently in his speech last March, is explored at length via anecdotes about his childhood, his campaigns in Illinois, and his observations of modern American life. Though some of the discussion centers on aspects unique to African-Americans, for the most part Obama is explicitly inclusive of the growing Hispanic community in his exploration of the continuing racial divide, and the inequality that accompanies it. He somehow anticipates the campaign John McCain would come to run in the last two weeks of the election, in which the implication would be made that the black candidate wanted to take white money and "spread the wealth" to minorities, and rejects this dichotomy out of hand:

These days, what ails working-class and middle-class blacks and Latinos is not fundamentally different from what ails their white counterparts: downsizing, outsourcing, automation, wage stagnation, the dismantling of employer-based health-care and pension plans, and schools that fail to teach young people the skills they need to complete in a global economy. And what would help minority workers are the same things that would help white workers: the opportunity to earn a living wage, the education and training that lead to such jobs, labor laws and tax laws that restore some balance to the distribution of the nation's wealth, and health-care, child care, and retirement systems that working people can count on.

By emphasizing solutions that do not rely on racial preferences, even though they might dramatically benefit the minority community, Obama removes the racial wedge that conservatives have relied on for so long. He also speaks with authority in his admonition of minority communities that have failed to do everything in their own power to improve their lot:

We should agree that the responsibility to close the gap can't come from government alone; minorities, individually and collectively, have responsibilities as well. Many of the social or cultural factors that negatively affect black people, for example, simply mirror in exaggerated forms problems that afflict America as a whole: too much television (the average black household has the television on more than eleven hours per day), too much consumption of poisons (blacks smoke more and eat more fast food), and a lack of emphasis on educational achievement.

Then there's the collapse of the two-parent black household, a phenomenon that is occurring at such an alarming rate when compared to the rest of American society that what was once a difference in degree has become a difference in kind, a phenomenon that reflects a casualness toward sex and child rearing among black men that renders children more vulnerable--and for which there is simply no excuse.

Like Nixon going to China, this is the sort of stuff that even the most trusted white politicians simply cannot say; for all the talk of Bill Clinton as the "first black president," he could never have made headway on the deterioration of black fatherhood. But Obama is not conceding to the conservative smear that lazy blacks are responsible for their own misfortune. He recognizes systemic disadvantages and has reasonable proposals for how government can give a hand up:

Strategies like an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit that helps all low-wage workers can make an enormous difference in the lives of these women and their children. But if we're serious about breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty, then man of these women will need some extra help with the basics that those living outside the inner city take for granted. They need more police and more effective policing in their neighborhoods, to provide them and their children some semblance of personal security. They need access to community-based health center that emphasize prevention--including reproductive health care, nutritional counseling, and in some case treatment for substance abuse. They need a radical transformation of the schools their children attend, and access to affordable child care that will allow them to hold a full-time job or pursue their education.

By combining a recognition that minority communities bear a great responsibility for self-improvement and agreement that the welfare reform of the 1990s was a valid first-step, Obama has the credibility to establish that demands on the community must be matched by social programs that create the environment in which self-improvement can take place. There is just no sense in talking about minority parents taking a greater role in their children's education when they are working two jobs. How much blame can be placed on a young black or Hispanic child for dropping out of a school that could not meet basic educational standards?

The very fact of Obama's victory in this election is an opportunity to turn a page, and write a new chapter. But it is only an opportunity, not a fait accompli. And while the President-Elect must lead, he can't be the only leader. The rest of us need to shoulder our share of the burden.

The last two chapters of the book are dichotomous, focusing on foreign policy and then family, but they demonstrate in their own ways the professional and personal strengths of our next President. I'll wrap up that discussion tomorrow.