For our final blog, my fellow OpenThinkers and I decided to respond to the prompt: “What do we owe to each other?” I’ve ruminated on this idea for a while, crumpling up half-formed outlines in my mind’s eye (and, for the record, likely missing the imaginary waste-paper basket with the follow-through). Nothing came to me, until I read a throwaway quote from Barack Obama in Vanity Fair about his thoughts on the push by activists to defund the police:
It’s interesting. We take for granted that if you want people to buy your sneakers, that you’re going to market it to your audience, right? We take for granted that if a musician drops a record, that they’re going to try to reach certain audiences by speaking to folks where they are. It’s no different in terms of ideas, right? So if you believe, as I do, that we should be able to reform the criminal justice system so that it’s not biased and treats everybody fairly, I guess you can use a snappy slogan, like Defund the Police, but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done. But if you instead say, Hey, you know what? Let’s reform the police department so that everybody’s being treated fairly. And not just in policing, but in sentencing, how can we divert young people from getting into crime? And if there was a homeless guy, can maybe we send a mental health worker there instead of an armed unit that could end up resulting in a tragedy? You know, suddenly a whole bunch of folks who might not otherwise listen to you are listening to you. So the key is deciding, do you want to actually get something done, or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with?
Obama’s words made me angry. In truth, I’ve long been angry at him for pithy remarks like these. The argument to defend Obama has always been that the consensus-driven half-measures that characterized his presidency were the result of a bellicose, impossible Congress who refused to let a Black man effectively lead. One could say that it is not possible to be a Black man and be President of the United States without a strong internal drive towards compromise, and a willingness to humanize those who perceive you as inhuman.
I bought those arguments to some extent. But his post-presidency career is littered with quotes just like these. Quotes that demean and belittle an entire generation of activists; quotes that undermine creative modes of resistance; quotes that expose an unwillingness to admit fault.
Instead, with a conspiratorial wink, he aims to bring his perceived audience into his arch-sensibility; into a world where the realists win out by biding their time and the unreasonable activists must adjust for their own good.
That world he constructs does not exist for people on the ground in Minneapolis, or Milwaukee, or LA. It doesn’t exist in Halifax, or Hamilton or Edmonton. It doesn’t exist in London, England, or Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, or in Lagos, Nigeria. Instead, in these cities, and in many more like them, regimes designed to brutalize and condemn communities have to be resisted. And they have to be resisted vigorously, with flair, creativity, and the promise of renewal.
As a former community organizer, Obama should be amazed and chastened by what those who followed him have been able to achieve in the most adverse of circumstances – circumstances that he had no small role in creating and maintaining. Just this week, in Los Angeles, the newly elected District Attorney (a former police officer) got rid of the death penalty, cash bail, and gang enhancements on his first day on the job. These policies have been at the core of advocacy efforts in Los Angeles County for decades, and activists who have been pushing for these changes have been relentless and strategic in achieving their goals. A slogan like “defund the police” has contributed to these efforts, as have the work of abolitionist organizers in municipalities across North America. These “slogans” that the former president chastises for their lack of efficacy have meaningfully transformed political discourses across the world in ways that, if you subscribe to his logic, ought to take generations to achieve.
What Obama demonstrates here is a lack of humility. Humility, in my view, is precisely what we owe to each other.
We ought to be humbled at our capacity to survive through what has been a year of hell. We ought to be humbled at our willingness, despite everything going on, to evolve and grow. And we ought to be humbled at our ability to imagine different futures, no matter how bleak the circumstance. That is what this discussion about defunding (which is actually a discussion about abolition) is all about. What Obama exposes in his commentary is an implicit fear that the sacrifices that he made in the pursuit of incremental change – the change that he perceived was possible – will be for naught. He and his legacy are vulnerable in the light of a world that transforms minute-by-minute. It is easier, therefore, to deny this change and to justify the mistakes that he made than it is to succumb to the idea that there may have been a different way to lead.
I understand that vulnerability in microcosm. My experiences during OpenThink, and during this experience as a graduate student overall, have confronted me with the limitations of my deeply held positions. I desire greatly to be of service to my community. I do not, however, get to decide whether my contributions are perceived to be helpful. I cannot control whether what I create stands the test of time. This fact is hard to accept.
What I would say to Obama is something that this year, in all of its absurdity, has taught me: no edifice that we build, no matter how majestic, no matter how well-intentioned, is permanent. Embracing that transformation with humility, and a curiosity about what is next, is the best way to move forward.
Image by Mike Brice from Pixabay
