a vision for the future, not a sense of personal entitlement to it

Barack Obama won the South Carolina Primary by an astounding 28 points last night, and he gave a phenomenal speech. I have posted the second half of the speech at the bottom of this post. 28 points. As predicted, the Clintons are acting like South Carolina did not even happen. Despite their campaign's heated efforts in South Carolina, they have deemed that the voices of South Carolina not to matter. Among many efforts, Clinton had staffers there for a very long time working 18 hour days, (I know how this goes), and Hillary Clinton did not have the dignity to get on stage in South Carolina in order to say "thank you" to their faces, and to the faces of her campaign's volunteers. This hurt my heart, even as a big Obama supporter. It was just another cruel reminder of the Clintons' arrogance, attitude of entitlement, and lack of class.

Last night's vote was not just a counter-response to the weeks of negativity from the Clinton campaign; rather, last night was about giving life to a vision. Caroline Kennedy wrote about this vision in the New York Times, and I hope you will take time to read it.

In this election the Republicans have been put on notice that Clinton is beatable, and the American public does not look lightly upon unethical attacks on Obama. Furthermore, Democrats have noted that the party requires a candidate that will not alienate voters like me, and the African-Americans the party turns to and remembers once every four years. Despite how the Clintons will spin it, South Carolina is not a special case. If Obama is the national candidate for the Dems, turn out WILL be high. Let's vote for someone who is truthful about being against the war. Let's vote for someone who is still in conversation with the poor and working classes. Let's vote for someone with a vision for the future, not just a sense of entitlement to it. Let's take some risks, let's challenge ourselves to be better than what it is that we are told to believe about ourselves. Let's make this happen.

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A President Like My Father

By CAROLINE KENNEDY

Published: January 27, 2008
New York Times OPEd

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960.

Most of us would prefer to base our voting decision on policy differences. However, the candidates’ goals are similar. They have all laid out detailed plans on everything from strengthening our middle class to investing in early childhood education. So qualities of leadership, character and judgment play a larger role than usual.

Senator Obama has demonstrated these qualities throughout his more than two decades of public service, not just in the United States Senate but in Illinois, where he helped turn around struggling communities, taught constitutional law and was an elected state official for eight years. And Senator Obama is showing the same qualities today. He has built a movement that is changing the face of politics in this country, and he has demonstrated a special gift for inspiring young people — known for a willingness to volunteer, but an aversion to politics — to become engaged in the political process.

I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.

Senator Obama is running a dignified and honest campaign. He has spoken eloquently about the role of faith in his life, and opened a window into his character in two compelling books. And when it comes to judgment, Barack Obama made the right call on the most important issue of our time by opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning.

I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

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And from Barack Obama's victory speech in South Carolina last night:

We are up against the idea that it’s acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. We know that this is exactly what’s wrong with our politics; this is why people don’t believe what their leaders say anymore; this is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.

And what we’ve seen in these last weeks is that we’re also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation. It’s the politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon. A politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us. The assumption that young people are apathetic. The assumption that Republicans won’t cross over. The assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor, and that the poor don’t vote. The assumption that African-Americans can’t support the white candidate; whites can’t support the African-American candidate; blacks and Latinos can’t come together.

But we are here tonight to say that this is not the America we believe in. I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina. I saw crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children. I saw shuttered mills and homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from all walks of life, and men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. I saw what America is, and I believe in what this country can be.

That is the country I see. That is the country you see. But now it is up to us to help the entire nation embrace this vision. Because in the end, we are not just up against the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, we are also struggling against our own doubts, our own fears, and our own cynicism. The change we seek has always required great struggle and sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it.

So let me remind you tonight that change will not be easy. That change will take time. There will be setbacks, and false starts, and sometimes we will make mistakes. But as hard as it may seem, we cannot lose hope. Because there are people all across this country who are counting us; who can’t afford another four years without health care or good schools or decent wages because our leaders couldn’t come together and get it done.

Theirs are the stories and voices we carry on from South Carolina.

The mother who can’t get Medicaid to cover all the needs of her sick child - she needs us to pass a health care plan that cuts costs and makes health care available and affordable for every single American.

The teacher who works another shift at Dunkin Donuts after school just to make ends meet - she needs us to reform our education system so that she gets better pay, and more support, and her students get the resources they need to achieve their dreams.

The Maytag worker who is now competing with his own teenager for a $7-an-hour job at Wal-Mart because the factory he gave his life to shut its doors - he needs us to stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship our jobs overseas and start putting them in the pockets of working Americans who deserve it. And struggling homeowners. And seniors who should retire with dignity and respect.

The woman who told me that she hasn’t been able to breathe since the day her nephew left for Iraq, or the soldier who doesn’t know his child because he’s on his third or fourth tour of duty - they need us to come together and put an end to a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged.

The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.

It’s about the past versus the future.

It’s about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation - a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.

There are those who will continue to tell us we cannot do this. That we cannot have what we long for. That we are peddling false hopes.

But here’s what I know. I know that when people say we can’t overcome all the big money and influence in Washington, I think of the elderly woman who sent me a contribution the other day - an envelope that had a money order for $3.01 along with a verse of scripture tucked inside. So don’t tell us change isn’t possible.

When I hear the cynical talk that blacks and whites and Latinos can’t join together and work together, I’m reminded of the Latino brothers and sisters I organized with, and stood with, and fought with side by side for jobs and justice on the streets of Chicago. So don’t tell us change can’t happen.

When I hear that we’ll never overcome the racial divide in our politics, I think about that Republican woman who used to work for Strom Thurmond, who’s now devoted to educating inner-city children and who went out onto the streets of South Carolina and knocked on doors for this campaign. Don’t tell me we can’t change.

Yes we can change.

Yes we can heal this nation.

Yes we can seize our future.

And as we leave this state with a new wind at our backs, and take this journey across the country we love with the message we’ve carried from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire; from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast; the same message we had when we were up and when we were down - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people in three simple words:

Yes. We. Can.

Question: What language do they speak in Haiti?

Answer: Haitian Creole (Kreyol) is spoken in Haiti.

One minute answer. . . ready. . . set. . . go:

Creole languages have a substrate language, with an adstrate lexifier overlay. So, for Haitian Creole, the substrate is African and the lexifying language is French which provides the roots and some of the articles which are then blended with the word or put after the word which is a trait of African languages. In Creole languages, the substrate is rarely identified specifically because the language originated among slaves who were purposely in mixed groups from all over Africa. This was a “secret” language used to communicate apart from the slave masters.

Some people want to call Creoles “pidgin French.” This is not the case. A pidgin language does not have native speakers, whereas Creoles do. It is believed that Creole was created by the children of slaves. Not having a “native tongue,” they blended the African languages they heard with the French from the masters. Creoles are morphologically developed languages. Pidgins are more like the equivalent of “glass drink me,” which could mean: “I will drink out of the glass.” Or, it is more like a variation of / dialect of a given lexifying language. Jamaican English is considered a Creole, but it could be debatable that it is a pidgin.

Creoles are not merely variations of or a dummying down of the lexifier language. They are a mixed fusion of language with a specific history rooted in a slave economy. All language is fluid. Spanish is not called pidgin Latin. Nor is it called a Creole. Yet modern day Castilian Spanish is also about 30% Arabic. To flip this thinking, a scholar at MIT has deemed Creole languages to actually be romance languages.

Let’s look at the ever-changing story of English. In England there was Gaelic, and then in the 6^th or 7th century the Anglos and the Saxons showed up. By the 8^th century there was old English, and a lot has changed since then. English is a Germanic language with its closest relative being Dutch. Yet, it could be called a romance language because so many of the language’s more sophisticated words are rooted in the Latin signifiers - - “entirely,” “collaborate,” “innovate.”

Is English known as “pidgin Latin”? No. Do people ask “is English a real language”? No. Do people ask, “Why do English speakers spell the words funny?” No. This is where the history of the language comes into play. French speakers find the written Creole to be a “phonetic spelling” of the French. This is incorrect, because of the complexity of Haitian Creole. But, it is also an incorrect and insensitive thing to say based on the history of Haiti revolting from the oppressor of the French.

The island of Hispaniola was the richest and most lush place on earth. In the seventeenth century, the French controlled the western third portion of the island while the Spanish controlled the eastern two-thirds. It was a slave economy. In the late seventeen hundreds 500,000 slaves revolted on the 40,000 French masters. The first president of Haiti was an ex-slave. The Haitian Revolution is responsible for a series of events in western history, including the Louisiana Purchase. Haiti is the first black republic. The Haitians have been punished by the US, French, Canada, and the western world ever since. For a closer and more elaborate history of Haiti, the Haitian people, and the US occupation of/influence in, I strongly suggest a fantastic book by Dr. Paul Farmer called The Uses of Haiti.

“Bonjou msye dam. Ki sa m kab fe pou nou?”
(Good morning sir and madam. What can I do for you?)

“M bezwen yon kostim. Madmwazel la vle we wob abiye yo. Montre nou bel bagay, paske nou vle abiye byenn bwode.”
(I need a suit. The lady wants to see the formal dresses. Show us nice things because we want to dress up.)

To hear more Haitian Creole, check out this video of Belo, a popular singer in Haiti. I saw him in concert in 2006, and I am a huge fan!

live the call of your own dexter avenue

Coretta Scott King and her husband, a leader and martyr of the Civil Rights movement, - were heroes among heroes. She was a mother and an activist. She was a dignified widow who continued her husband Martin’s work. She had faith that could move mountains. Through my political work, and Washingtonian social relationships I have had the pleasure of meeting numerous historical figures, celebrities, and writers - but meeting Mrs. King was one encounter that I will always remember.

My sophomore and junior years in college, I was very involved with a student lecture series on campus at American University called The Kennedy Political Union (KPU). As Director of Logistics, it was my responsibility to “make sure the trains run on time.” Before each event, I would often spend a week coordinating all of the on and off campus entities pertinent in making a lecture happen. During my time with KPU, we hosted a wide range of historical and political icons including His Holiness the Dali Lama and Charleton Heston.

It was October of 1998 when Mrs. King was our guest speaker. In preparation, her handler - a very protective assistant - was quite particular about how things would need to be on the day of her speech. The arrangement we agreed upon with her assistant was as follows: On the day of the speech, she (and her assistant) would have cocktails at President Ladner's house before heading over to campus. Upon her arrival, we would greet hold a small meet and greet for KPU members with Mrs. King. Then, the officers would escort the President, his wife, Mrs. King, (and her handler of course), by elevator, down to the stage. Mrs. King would speak for however long and then return for a private reception with the members of the Kennedy Political Union. It was essential in the handler’s orders that Mrs. King not encounter any one other than KPU staff before and after the speech. This may have been a security measure.

For an hour or so before this, I arranged that the elevator essentially go into “lock” mode so no random American University folks could possibly get on board and interrupt our journey with Mrs. King down to the floor of the gymnasium where she would walk to the stage for speaking. As back up, I placed a student with a walkie-talkie on every single floor with the explicit instructions "do not let anyone on to the elevator.” When it was time, I sent the message to them all via walkie-talkie that Mrs. King, the Ladners, and the Officers have gotten into the elevator. Things were going smoothly. We rode in silence. Then the elevator stopped on floor seven. "Why is the elevator stopped, what is happening?” It is holds for a few seconds. The doors open and a sweaty, stinky, gross guy on rollerblades wearing a bizarre hat gets right on!!

I was tempted to say “hey- stop - you can’t get on,” but I didn’t want to appear ungracious in front of a woman who had allowed the most gracious act possible – the sacrifice of her husband, and the father of her children. Derrida says the only true gift is the gift of one’s life. I stood in an elevator with a woman who had given a sacred gift for our country, and prevailed not in silence but with a voice. Appearing to be absolutely unaware of the serious-looking and dignified Mrs. King in a bright red suit, along with the President of the University and his wife dressed to the nines--- this guy rollerblades right into the elevator and journeys with us all the way to the gym floor.

It was difficult for me to hold back the laughter. With in a few seconds that seemed to pass like hours- the doors opened and Mrs. King exited – arm in arm with her handler, who gave the stare of death to the poor kid on the gym floor with the walkie-talkie.

After a most inspiring speech to nearly two thousand people, I visited with Mrs. King at the private reception upstairs. With a big lump in my throat, I approached her, and I felt such humility. She was sitting down, resting in a chair. I walked over and thanked her for her work, and for the inspiring speech. With her left hand she squeezed my left hand. I looked down at her wedding ring, and thought about her husband. She continued to hold my hand for longer than I expected and she said, "Soon, you will be doing this too. You will be doing the work my husband and I dedicated our lives to.”

That moment and those words are so accessible and fresh in my memory. Yet, it was almost a decade ago. Reflecting, I think about how I have most certainly failed in the covenant I made on that day. But I also think of the old adage that says - if you are not backsliding then your standards are just not high enough.

I took this photo in 2006 on a mini-pilgrimage to Montgomery, Alabama. The Kings lived in this house from 1954 to 1960 while Rev. King was ministering at Dexter Avenue. He initially took the position at Dexter Avenue thinking it would be a quiet place to work and finish up his PhD dissertation, but the black domestic workers and cooks were organizing. They were waiting for him. And he arrived.