Yes we can!

I don’t remember feeling this wave of universal optimism and jubilation since Mandela was released.

That was ‘BO’ (Before Obama).

The streets and bars and clubs are rocking with star struck people of all ethnicities, sexualities, abilities, ages, genders, and faiths, all forgetting to feel the bitter cold. I’ve met Germans, Brazilians, Columbians, latinos, Indians, Pakistanis, Mexicans, British, and Portuguese and everyone!

I have attended several discussion events in my few days here in Washington,. I was at the famous ‘Busboys and poets’ bookstore and restaurant, (where I bought the book that Barack Obama read for his campaign, ‘Rules for Radicals’ by Saul Alinsky), then at a local black church (Plymouth) and at Howard University. The panellists ranged from local community activists of every ethnicity, through to Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, Queen Latifah and Chris Bridges to the actress Rosario Dawson, as well as civil rights leaders and commentators like Reverend Al Sharpton, Dr Cornell West and Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Almost everyone on the streets and in the bars and restaurants, churches, university students have at least one Obama word in common: ‘transcend’.

He transcended above the fray, above the politics of race and gender, and above the politics of politics.

This is not the same as going beyond, because Obama has not left any of these issues and these issues will never leave him.

He did not go beyond gender but transcended the anti-sexism rhetoric without action.

He did not go beyond race but beyond the rhetoric-without-action of some anti-racists, making use of a practical opportunity for power and doing something to bring about equality.

Female panellists at Howard university were asked how they felt about a white woman losing out to a black man, but are there still fissures between white women and black men? They said we learnt a lot from Obama. He ran a better campaign. He showed that you don’t have to put anyone down to put yourself forward.

Obama did not say disparaging things about Hilary, he did not enter the fray of whether there was a choice between a white woman and black man , between tackling sexism and tackling racism. He did not entertain discussions of hierarchies and he never denied the reality of race or gender disparities, nor for that matter any issue of equality. Obama mentions sexuality in almost every important speech he makes.

There seems to be room for all views, and those who have been on the receiving end of discrimination feel enfranchised enough to converse as equals.

When the press were attacking Sarah Palin for her daughter being a single-mum-to-be, Barack Obama said hands off everyone, I was born to a single mother.

He did not join in with the personal attacks to take his political enemy down; he stayed true to personal values.

I heard it said at a panel of hip hop artists by the moderator Barry Michael Cooper (journalist and filmmaker), that he is the new template for black masculinity; I would go further and say that he’s perhaps the template for all men.

The feeling of togetherness and unity, change, and of a new world dawning is fantastic. And yet there is room for difficult questions. In many of the debates, questions were raised about Palestine and Obama’s course of action.

I heard cynics saying ‘only one person has changed so what can he do when the others behind him stay the same’.

And I heard others answering, ‘He is, however, the key change and he has constituency power and pull and push; people will not let him be alone. They will organise stronger and harder to make the most of this opportunity.’

I read the Black Men of London (BMOL) response to one such cynic and it was so spot on it merits being replicated here: ‘There’s lessons for us all from observing Obama. We don’t have to accept every invitation to a fight or an argument. And if we have to win people over to our point of view by shouting or disparaging them, then our reason is weak.’

At the same time very real racial inequalities exist in the unemployment and income levels of people of colour in the UK and globally. These inequalities are visible in the lower levels of achievement in education of particular groups such as white working-class boys, traveller and gypsy children, Caribbean and Pakistani boys, and in the over-representation of people of colour in the criminal justice system and mental health wards, as well as in the under-representation of people of colour in the judiciary, police, teaching, parliament, and local authority systems (to name but a few).

So we cannot let Obama down; we cannot leave him to the wolves of Wall Street or the power-hungry territorial heads of state and nations that care nothing about killing ordinary citizens by the thousand. We cannot leave Obama alone to deal with world poverty, hunger or to realise the Millennium Development Goals.

We may have change, we may have hope, but we don’t have equality yet. That is for all of us to deliver, by transcending the fray and working on higher principles, values and better respect for all humanity.

The hip hop panel ended by saying there are two time periods: BO and AO. Join us in making AO a time for equality – our time!

* Karen Chouhan is the Equanomics UK co-ordinator and director for research and policy.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.