Summer Recovery Moon
What will Obama be like as an ex-President? We have so many right now that various modes are very visible: the George’s Bush, Carter and Clinton. The Bushes seem to emphasize the retirement model with George I sky-diving and George II painting, cutting brush. Clinton has maintained a high-public profile with his speaking, foundation and, of course, Hillary’s career, too. Jimmy Carter is maybe the most interesting model since he has used his post-Presidential years to become a trusted international interlocutor, especially around the issues of free elections.
These are, of course, fragmentary observations, based on one man’s perception, so they are not in any way definitive. Rather, they speak to a filtered and publicly formed image. Still, they seem instructive to me.
My guess is that Obama will become even more important as an ex-President than any of the others living now, perhaps more important than any ex-President ever. Why? When he is no longer President of all the people, he can begin to illuminate racism and its structural intricacies. Who better to know them than a black man who has lived at the peak of institutionalized power?
Further, since he is young and since his Presidential term will end as the demographics of the United States continue to press toward a more and more heterogeneous citizenry, his influence can only grow. Too, the repetitive instances of police violence toward black folk, made more visible now by portable cameras in cellphones and the immediacy of internet distribution, seem to have created a teachable moment for the U.S. as a whole. Part of my guess about Obama as ex-President was spurred by his oratory at the funeral of Clementa Pickney in Charleston. You can feel him becoming less inhibited by his office.
My hope is that he and his advisers can shape a post-Presidential life for him that will finally put the question of racial privilege, white racism, on the docket of our nation and keep it there until healing on both parts can begin.
This is not just an American problem, racism is a subset of ethnocentrism, which is a primary driver in conflicts and wars around the world: Tutus and Hutsis in Rawanda, Israelis and Palestinians, Sunnis and Shiites, ISIS and Christians, anti-semitism in Russia, Germany, France, apartheid in South Africa, Tibet and the Uighurs in China, India and Pakistan, the response to refugees in Turkey, Italy, Nigeria. Yes, of course, economics matter and so do politics, but look at each of these situations and try to extract the ethnocentric component from the economic, the political. The three intertwine and co-determine.
Obama could have an important role to play in addressing this global and historic flaw in human relations. He can’t solve it, but he can raise its visibility and keep it on the global agenda for a long time to come. May it be so.