alias Bruce.

How Did We Get Here?

On Thanksgiving Day, my relatives and I were talking about Martin Luther King Boulevards. Plural. As in how there are more and more of them in cities across America. And how they seem to mean less and less.

Time was (and still is in some communities) when the effort to merely name a major street in town after America's great hero of nonviolent resistance and conscience was treated like a call to war. Some of you have suffered through what I'm talking about: Outrage on one side about the violation of age-old street-name "tradition" and the danger of yielding to "tokenism" or the scary muscle of black demands. Outrage on the other side about the fact that the renaming of a street after King is a controversy in the first place. Toledo, Ohio went through a pitched battle over this just a few years ago; I saw some of it first-hand when a remarkable Toledo coalition had groups citywide dialoguing, and even reading one of my books on race, and arranged for me to visit. Such ruckuses have never been about MLK's name alone; they are also about black grievances and the white resentments thereof.

But what today's proliferation of MLK Boulevards is about in some cities, it seems to me, is increasingly a kind of listless civic stenciling of King's name with little official attention to actually doing the things that King's legacy demands. Just as Americans' once-a-year cherry-picking of phrases from King's "I Have a Dream" speech has become a safe way to duck his fiercely defiant politics, so has sticking MLK's name on a street sign become a substitute for actual urban policy that would carry out King's convictions on jobs and justice, to name just two. Follow an MLK Boulevard through many a city, and you are likely to pass through a section of town starved for the resources and services that the middle class (and even a good portion of the white working class) take for granted, including responsible policing. In any number of towns, the "MLK Blvd" exit sign on the highway is likely to translate as, "neighborhood where the city ignores the needs that Dr. King died for." Or, as one of my (black) relatives put it in a wicked moment of commentary on white mainstream views of the black poor, the "MLK Blvd" placard can also be read as "Formerly Darktown."

It's not that the municipal embrace of King's name, for which so many good people have fought so fiercely, is a bad thing. It's the opposite: What is dishonorable is the way that so many cities use King's name while avoiding his true mission. In their social smallness, the ubiquitous MLK street signs become a trite branding of the King moniker, a widespread trivializing of a giant. The poverty of vision behind this nationwide "give 'em their street" reflex is as embarrassing as it is deficient. We owe King, that battler for unions and peace and economic justice, so much more than we give him.

In that sense, it's not what the MLK street signs say that's a problem. It's what they don't.

Wishing You a Happy Thanksgiving.

The Hate Vote.

This from the Associated Press:

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

-Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.

-At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."

-Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.

-Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.

-Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported.

-Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.

-A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.'

-In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house."

You will also find stories about this in the Chicago Tribune and the Times of London, among others.

Anyone who claims that the election of Barack Obama means anything like the end of American racism is either delusional or dishonest. For this minefield we have many people to thank: The planters who figured that a bloody slave economy on purloined New World land would work just fine if they could muster a race-based explanation; the white slavers and the black African kidnappers who supplied them; the political preachers who picked up the racist gospel; the George Wallaces and Michael Savages and Rush Limbaughs who, in their own ways, have pimped off of ethnic fear and rage; and the kicked-around poor and working whites who lap up mass-produced hatred as a tonic for poverty and insecurity.

The only thing new about today's race-hate news is that spazzed-out whites now have another level of racial progress of which to be terrified: the election of a black president. As in the 1860s and the 1960s, fair-minded people in 2008 celebrate triumph -- while we also need to be prepared to deal with those who can't yet cope with it.

Are you ready?

Thanks to Herschel for the heads up.

Obama Schizophrenia.

It's time we gave it a name, this careening mental conflict between hope and dread that so many of us feel as the evidence begins to trickle in on the man we elected to begin the un-wrecking of our nation.

On the one hand, can you imagine anything like Obama's just-announced huge public works and alternative energy program coming out of a McCain/Palin administration? Can you, in fact, imagine anything at all from a McCain/Palin administration except more shell games for business, more war, more meanness and international isolation and stupidity and despair, and a nationwide surge in passport applications? And do you remember how, mere weeks ago, the question of whether the erudite and intelligent would-be President Obama would gain his chance to salvage the country kept millions of us awake at night and pondering our overseas career options?

On the other hand, the growing Team Obama scorecard is not looking very Change-like. We have a stream of Clinton Administration alums preparing their latest Washington office space while placid journalists on NPR talk shows calm us with reminders that Clinton Nation is the Dems' sole remaining source for the "experienced" top guns they insist Obama will need for success. (Hmm: aren't these the same reporters who a few weeks back were marveling at how Obama's triumphant presidential campaign had itself shredded "alumnus" assumptions about building political success?) Chief among these incoming harbingers of potential non-change is Hillary Clinton, who we are now told is a virtual lock as Secretary of State, which would be merely worrisome if not for alarming reports that the Obama team has purged itself of Clinton critics to meet her conditions for taking the job. The most prominent such Clinton critic, Obama's insightful and effective top campaign foreign policy adviser Susan Rice, has reportedly been ruled out of contention for National Security Adviser in order to accommodate Clinton's point of view. This is not what we would expect to see from an incoming president of backbone and fortitude.

So a lot of us are caught between our hopes for who Obama can be and our fears of who he might turn out to be. Not that I myself will be able to claim credit for being a doubt-free Obama believer if he proves himself a heroic ground-breaker. Plenty of us have been leery of the wiggle-room in his rhetoric, and of his essential stature as a corporate politician, since the beginning of his campaign, and we have said so. A phalanx of lefties, in fact, has been patiently waiting to say I told you so about Obama ever since he first uttered his coyly vague call for "change."

But the thing is, we know that Obama could yet prove to be something spectacularly special as president. He could have the FDR-like mettle to push and persuade and to ultimately prevail with a public-minded agenda. He could be that once-in-a-lifetime leader who pulls others along through sheer force of will, conscience, intellect and political savvy. He could have the strength it takes to both hear out and rein in a stable of Clintons and Joneses and Gateses.

We know, too, that the left has its work cut out for it in creating pressure for Obama to deliver on anything like his potential.

Obama Schizophrenia. It might be a long-term condition for us to work out.

But I have to say, for the sake of perspective: When all of this "what will Obama deliver" conjecture threatens to make you crazy, remember the brick wall of regressive certainty we'd be up against in an administration of a mercenary John McCain and a winking Sarah Palin.

Who Is He?

The hugeness of this historical moment notwithstanding, we had best avoid trying to paint a portrait of President Barack Obama just yet.

For one thing, he is not even president yet. We've got to give him and his family a chance to size up their new global life and to move their earthly belongings into the White House.

For another, there are just too many variables. One such fulcrum for frenzied speculation -- highlighted by the commotion about his possible choice of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State -- is whether Obama will preside by insider-minded expediency or by public-minded principle, or somewhere in between.

The possible Clinton offer, now in the serious stages of vetting (they're reportedly looking at Bill's finances), has brought howls from some progressive quarters about Obama's abandoning his grand campaign pledge of "change," especially now that his team increasingly resembles a Clinton III Administration. The potential Clinton offer has, on the other hand, drawn kudos from some who see it as the ideal olive branch for two stellar politicians estranged by a bitter presidential primary (let's not forget, though, that most of the ugliness originated with Clinton, whose ambition I think outstrips her principle by orders of magnitude).

I can see the Clinton offer, if it comes to pass, as being both smarmy and smart. The real question, I think, is who Obama is. Because that, in the end, is what will determine how the tenure of a Secretary of State Clinton would play out. I can see a few scenarios:

GOOD OBAMA: He appoints Secretary of State Clinton as part of an Administration that he composes, ultimately, with a prickly and volatile range of heavyweight players from widely varying points of view. He does this deliberately to give himself a supporting cast of questioners and challengers instead of yes-men and -women. He then presides strongly from his own set of principles, listening to all advice but unhesitatingly giving corrective marching orders to, say, Clinton, when she gets too hawkish on Iraq or too soft on the giants of global trade. He governs with the best of both worlds: a wide span of perspectives and a clear set of values.

BAD OBAMA: He appoints Secretary of State Clinton as part of an Administration that he composes, ultimately, from a docile desire to avoid battle and to do what seems "realistically" achievable in narrow corporate-political terms. He does this because he ultimately lacks the backbone to assemble, and to fight on behalf of, an Administration that stands up for the fundamental change in politics and policy that he championed in his campaign rhetoric. He then presides from a standpoint in which "unity" (e.g., agreement) trumps the necessity for him to actually take charge and be willing to make political enemies for the sake of the public good. He governs with the worst of both worlds: a narrow set of players and a vague set of public assurances and excuses.

UNKNOWN OBAMA: He stakes out some territory between the above two extremes: giving a Clinton free rein on some matters and taking firm control on others, making expedient and even cowardly compromises on some issues and taking a strong stand on others. Or he confounds traditional thinkers and uses what turn out to be his extraordinary powers of persuasion to build a bold consensus in what began as a divided house. Or he follows another path that we cannot yet foresee.

Within the limits of what a corporate politician is structurally able to achieve (e.g., let's not expect Obama to be the leader who delivers universal free health care), Obama may yet prove to be a transformative political figure. He may assemble and run his Administration and advance his ideals in a way that disarms his opponents and detractors. I think he has that potential. He may also turn out to be fickle, more talk than action, or otherwise hugely disappointing and ineffective. I think he has that potential, too.

Once again, we don't know yet.

But we sure do wonder.

No Joke.

This is for real:

I have a good friend who is white, at least by the popular definitions. A couple of days ago he told me how he had gone into the neighborhood 7-Eleven. When he went to the counter to pay, the white clerk began telling him black jokes. Appalling stuff. The clerk yukked it up, expecting shared laughter. My friend stared at him, stonily, silently. He is a jazz musician who doesn't hang out much with paleolithic white guys, and he says he was pretty much in shock at that moment. He turned on his heel and walked out of the store.

He told his wife, who is white. So what does she do -- he found this out later -- but march down to the 7-Eleven herself, plant herself in front of the clerk, and announce to him, "In spite of how he looks, my husband is not entirely white. So I suggest you lay off the nigger jokes."

Then she walks out.

What Paul Harvey would call the rest of the story is that my friend has some Native American ancestry, and he also has southern hill country relatives who intermingled with African Americans. So he does not self-identify as formally "white." In fact, when he fills out forms that ask for race, he checks "other," which earns him the occasional odd look or a befuddled "Are you certain this is what you meant, sir?"

What I like about this story is that it's double-barreled: first the bigoted white clerk gets a hole burned into him for telling the joke, and then on the rebound he sees his assumptions about whiteness itself smashed before his very eyes.

My friend's wife did not mean, by what she told the clerk, that his telling a white joke to a truly white guy would have been okay. She was simply flinging in another power-packed piece of information to further blow this yokel's mind. The next time a "white" customer walks in the door, the clerk might think twice or thrice before launching into a knee-slapping black joke.

I think this is good. I'd like to see more white people call out other whites, in public, for racist acts. Bigots need to know that they can't get away with this nonsense by simply hiding it from the scorned group. They need to understand that even people who they think are safely "like them" will be offended and will read them the riot act about their behavior. As a black man, I will never hear the mean black joke from the white clerk, just as if you are Jewish you will never hear the wicked Jewish joke among gentiles, and if you are gay you will never hear the vile gay joke among straights (well, actually, I guess a gay person might, and a Jew might hear a gentile-recited Jewish joke as well, which makes the whole thing that much uglier).

I mention in my most recent book something I call "the masturbation rule," which translates as, "the privilege of self-abuse belongs to the affected group alone." A black person grounded in his self-esteem and his culture might tell a black joke among other self-secure blacks and get away with it. A Jew might tell a Jewish joke among Jews. Even this is dangerous ground, you understand. But if the culture at issue does not belong to you? Forget it. You're going to get slammed if you get caught, and you'll deserve it.

So to paraphrase Bill Cosby: Come on, people. No turning the other cheek when "our" people abuse "others" in our presence. As I've told my friend who told me the above story, he is my eyes (and he has my back) among whites who say racist things I cannot hear. I have his back among people of color who say bigoted things he cannot hear. We need to look out for one another here.

Otherwise, the joke is on all of us.

Testing, Testing.

One of the things we hear a lot about right now is how much we should expect from President Obama once his term begins. The expectations run the gamut, from Obama's being an Uncle Tom who will offer us nothing (as one resolute listener opined on a talk show on which I appeared) to his being a visionary who will change America as we know it.

At the moment, my own thoughts are, number one, (and I keep reminding myself of this), We Don't Know Yet, and number two, Obama is bound to be both a wondrous improvement over the Current Occupant (we know that much) and a significant disappointment on issues in which his tendency toward "unity" might become an excuse to fold to corporate and other expedient interests.

A good example right now is President-Elect Obama's White House conversation yesterday with President Bush -- Bush looks ever-tinier by the moment, doesn't he, although he continues to do damage with policy -- in which Bush reportedly said he would consider Obama's request for immediate help for the auto industry if the aid were tied to a "free-trade" agreement with Colombia that Bush has sought for some time. Obama clearly cannot force Bush to do anything. But if Obama gives a nod of approval to such a cynical pairing of domestic survival policy with largesse toward corrupt corporate-favored foreign governments, it will be a bad sign. Newly-appointed Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has indicated previously that President Obama won't let high-stakes American domestic policy be held hostage in such a way. Let's hope that's true. As always, we'll see.

This is apart from whether Obama's proposed Washington bailout of Detroit is a good idea, which is another conversation.

What It Means.

We don't yet know, of course.

Right now a lot of us are still busy celebrating the making of history and the great things that an Obama presidency makes it possible for our nation -- as in you and me and all of us -- to accomplish.

We will come to know more of what this means, and how very much it has to do with what we as citizens and advocates and activists choose to do with the breathtaking opportunities of the coming months and years.

But for now, I offer this for you to consider:

WHAT OBAMA'S ELECTION MEANS:

– We are now looking at the most serious president since Lyndon Johnson when it comes to addressing our monster social issues. Today, these are failure of government economic oversight; reckless war for profit and power; the dire need for health care, fair taxation, jobs and protection of workers' rights; and defense of human and animal survivability on the planet, to name a few.

– In the voting booth, a significant number of white Americans did not allow racism to disable their judgment about leadership.

– After eight years to the contrary, the term "American presidency" will again be elevated to a stature beyond personal mediocrity and moral slovenliness. Words such as "inspiring," "deft," "knowledgeable," and "commanding" will re-enter our vocabulary for presidential thought and behavior.

– Much of the rest of the world, which was poised to move from contempt for our government to contempt for our citizenry in the event of a McBush threepeat, is now gasping with relief at Obama's victory, and is celebrating the imminent re-entry of American statesmanship into the civilized world. Now that the catastrophic danger of a McCain/Palin regime is past, you might want to read Jonathan Freedland's scary September 10 Guardian editorial on what was at stake internationally. (Thanks to Estella for this.)

– Fifty years after legal segregation, an African American is president of the United States. That sound you hear is the explosion of a black ceiling sending shards of cast iron into outer space.

– We will enjoy at least four years of a dignified and classily down-to-earth First Family in the White House, which will allow memories of piggish recent White House occupants and their ill-behaved offspring (not to mention their hunting accidents) to mercifully recede.

– When you travel abroad, you will now often feel able to say you are an American in a loud voice.

– With a black president, and with an overall electorate of color that voted overwhelmingly for him while the overall white electorate voted against him slightly more than for him, talking about race has now become both easier and harder. It is easier because we now have to do it. And it is harder because, well, we now have to do it.

WHAT OBAMA'S ELECTION DOESN'T MEAN:

– Obama is a fighting progressive who will fiercely battle the corruption inherent in corporate capitalism, and who will stand on principle on all of the major issues of social justice.

– Racism is over.

– Progressives and social reformers can now relax in the knowledge that principled leadership in Washington will take charge of righting America's ills.

– The antiwar movement's work is done, and the Iraq war will be swiftly ended without hypocrisy, double-talk, or political sleight of hand.

– An Obama Administration will not pander to or condone the aggression of the contemporary Israeli regime, and will demand and enforce justice for Palestinians.

– Because the President is black, impoverished communities of color no longer have valid grievances. Nor do blacks disproportionately sentenced to death for murdering white victims as opposed to black victims. Nor do black men driving alone on patrolled highways at night. Nor do well-dressed middle-class black women targeted for attention by department store detectives.

– When you travel abroad, you will not have to worry about being challenged about your nation's bad alliances and destructive policies.

– With a black president, talking about race is no longer necessary.

Yes We Did.

So we did it. We opened the door to a better country. And we reopened a closed door to the rest of the world. And we shut the door -- at least officially for now -- to the lying, slinking McCains and the feckless, winking Palins of American chicanery.

Okay, so a slim 51-to-48-percent popular vote margin in this race speaks pretty poorly for the faculties of a big portion of the electorate.

But can you feel the heaved sigh of relief from Seattle to Sydney? Are you reminded at long last, as I am, what the term "presidential" looks and sounds like? Did you see President-Elect Obama's term begin -- instantly eclipsing the dim-eyed dysfunction of George W. Bush -- with his commanding address on election night in Chicago's Grant Park?

I have said it before and I will likely keep on saying it: Obama is a corporate politician. Progressives will have to push his Administration for much of what we get.

But as we push, isn't it nice to see that the nation can actually begin to move?

And doesn't it feel good, after all these long, tortuous years, to feel pride in the presidency again?

There will be more to say in the coming days and weeks and months.

But for now, these (low-resolution) photos I took -- above and below -- of a spontaneous election night street celebration in Baltimore might say enough.

Today.

Today the sky brightens as we start to emerge from years of lies, fear, torture, and shame. Or it dims as we sink, ignorantly and hatefully, into the same or worse.

Vote. Not for perfection. But for plain, human possibility.