Post-Election: Emotions, Hopes, Concerns, Ideas for Future

The following notes were written by Prof. Marilyn Frankenstein, a colleague at the College of Public and Community Service (CPCS), UMass-Boston. She wrote them on Nov. 9, 2008, shortly after the election, for a talk she was invited to give to a class at CPCS, and has generously agreed to have them posted on the Obama Travellers blog site. DR


EMOTIONS

A few weeks before when it hit me that we might really have a Black President—up until then whenever I thought of his race, it was always with the concern that racism could cost us the election—and I started to cry remembering so many times as a child singing “We shall Overcome.”

Then when I came out of the voting booth and started to cry again remembering meeting with old Black South Africans in a small house in Soweto as they were preparing to vote for the first time ever and how much it had meant to them. For the first time, voting meant so much to me and I was proud to be able to cast my ballot for a liberal Black man in our country.

And very proud that in Cambridge where I live almost 90% of the votes were for Obama.

“Americans have finally gotten beyond our racial past and picked a black man to clean up our mess.” (“Real Time with Bill Maher” HBO, Friday, November 7, 2008)


HOPE

Walking around New Hampshire, especially in a working class neighborhood, I felt the tidal wave of change:

That there will be no going back in terms of the demographics and in terms of young white attitudes towards race;

That we could elect a Black President while the country is still majority white country;

That the smears largely stuck to McCain and Palin;

That the “Muslim” and “socialist” smears—now that they did not work so well—give us a chance to enter into a national discussion about why those were considered smears;

That we elected a man whose most frequent blog words were “change” and “country” and “future” and “supporters” over one whose most frequent blog words were “opposes” and “drilling” and “pentagon” and “canceled” and biggest of all “Obama” his opponent!

That we could elect a “socialist” president (that as Michael Moore said so many times to the Democratic Party—people will not vote for Bush-lite when they can get the real thing—and this time the Democrats presented reasonably strong liberal positions and got elected which signals a victory in the struggle against privatization;

That a community organizer organized the whole country, in an empowering way, to elect him;

That we could elect an “elite intellectual” signals a victory in the struggle against anti-intellectualism.


CONCERNS

That those young white attitudes towards race are personal and not institutional;

That the Senate races in Alaska and Georgia are being stolen by the Republicans;

That such a small percent of eligible voters voted. For example, 49% of all eligible voters in Boston voted; 62% in the entire country;

That the first “socialist” President is even thinking of appointing Larry Summers as Treasury Secretary. December 1991 memo from Larry Summers, in his role as the chief economist for the World Bank: “Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the L.D.C.’s [Less Developed Countries]? . . . A given amount of health-impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost. . . . I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.” And for more watch http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/7/can_grassroots_movement_that_propelled_obama;

That Keith Olbermann, my therapist during this election season, will not have any more material unless Sarah Palin goes to the Senate. Someone, I think on Bill Maher, said that 80% of the Republicans want her to be their Party’s leader and 100% of Democrats want that, too.


IDEAS FOR THE FUTURE


At the Democratic National Convention this August, Dennis Kucinich’s chorus in his talk was “Wake up America.” We woke up. Now we have to get out of bed. We need to transfer Obama’s electoral ground organization to a civil movement for progressive change;

My idea for us here at CPCS and UMB and UMass throughout the state is to reconceive our role to include more than education of our students, but also education of all the citizens of Massachusetts. I will soon work with others to write a proposal for a popular education for citizens and will suggest the first topic be an examination of the ethical, economic, political, social and other meanings of the institution of taxes.