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I have been trying to pinpoint what it is about Obama that strikes a chord with me. Many Clinton supporters have accused Obama-ites of not being politically astute and of supporting a candidate based on feel-good rhetoric and not the experience that the candidate brings to the presidency. For me, this does not address the Clintons' past betrayals of my political support. I saw then-President Clinton sign NAFTA, put welfare mothers to work, support "don't ask, don't tell", and become embroiled in Republican mud-slinging (mostly self-inflicted, I mean come on a thong!) that brought the Clinton administration to a stand-still for nearly two years.
On top of this, in 1996 President Clinton signed the Relocation Bill that evicted traditional Navajo families (including some of my relatives) living at Big Mountain, Arizona from their land to strip mine the coal that lies just under the surface. Strip mining is so environmentally destructive that the land is not inhabitable for several generations. The bill proposed relocating these traditional Dineh to the site of the United States' largest radiation spill called--in an Orwellian touch--"New Lands". I have no faith that things have changed. In the past several years, Senator Clinton has stood by and supported the Bush administration march to war. I believe her vote on the war was a politically pragmatic decision made to pander to the Republican base--with little or no concern for me or other concerned Democrats who opposed it.
But my interest in Obama is not simply a by-product of my distrust of the Clintons' political choices. I began to realize that it is after all the candidates' very attitudes towards public service that lead me to favor Obama . If elected, Obama, born in 1961, will be the first person from my generation to be elected to the Presidency. 1960 is considered the beginning of Generation X, which corresponds with the bottoming out of the birthrate that occurred between 1960-1980. Obama's election would mark the end of the Boomer generation's hold on political leadership and the passing of that mantle onto my own. I was born in the middle of the spread of years that define Generation X, but I recognize in Obama some of the approaches to race and identity that are the marks of a mixed-blood person born in the era following the Civil Rights movement. There has been much discussion about President Clinton's racist postcard that he sent to his grandmother in the midst of the Civil Rights movement. I see this card sent by law student Clinton to his grandmother in the deep South strikes as predictive of his political career to come. He was willing to bend to the expected social mores that may have been common at the time (I don't know, I was not alive then) but his actions are lacking in personal integrity and choice of someone coming of age in the midst of change.
I recently read a great article on Salon.com written by Gary Kamiya called "Bi-racial, but not like me" on the subject. Kamiya's analysis of his support for Obama is the best I've read on the subject. He quotes from Obama's autobiography "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance":
One of those transformative moments comes during Obama's undergraduate days, after he had given a well-received speech urging the university to divest from South Africa. A black friend, Regina, praised his talk, but Obama cynically denied that it had any meaning, saying he just did it for the applause and that it wouldn't change anything. Regina retorted that he was selfish and shallow -- "It's not just about you" -- and angrily left. Left alone, Obama suddenly realized she was right. His mother had told him the same thing, but he had rejected it, putting it down as "white" truths. "Who told you that being honest was a white thing? ... You've lost your way, brother. Your ideas about yourself -- about who you are and who you might become -- have grown stunted and narrow and small.
"How had that happened? I started to ask myself, but before the question had even formed in my mind, I already knew the answer. Fear ... The constant, crippling fear that I didn't belong somehow ... that I would always remain an outsider, with the rest of the world, black and white, always standing in judgment."
Then
