Hullabaloo

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

 
Here's To Doing The Right Thing

by digby

Apparently, Obama's grandmother is very ill and he will take a couple of days off from campaigning to spend some time with her. He lost both of his parents at a relatively young age and his grandmother is the last of his parental figures --- it's a sad irony that she should be so ill when her grandson is on the cusp of achieving the most powerful job in the world.

Here is an excerpt from a lovely thoughtful post from Ta-Nehesi Coates about Barack's grandmother.

... I was looking at this picture of Obama's grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I'd bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn't give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man. There is a reason why we have a long history of publicly biracial black people, but not so much of publicly biracial white people.

We often give a pass to racists by noting that they were "of their times." Fair enough, and I know Hawaii was a different beast, but still, today, let us speak of people who were ahead of their times, who were outside of their times. Let us remember that Barack Obama learned the great lessons of life from courageous white people. Let us speak of those who do what normal, right people should always do when faced with a child--commit an act love. Here's to doing the right thing.

Bravo. There were always people who weren't racists in America, going all the way back to the beginning. And those people don't get enough credit and aren't held up as examples of people of courage and integrity, almost as if we want to hide them away because they prove that people always had a choice.

Madelyn Dunham is a good woman who produced a good and open minded daughter and helped raise a good and inspirational grandson. Let's hope she recovers and can see him get elected and sworn in to the presidency.


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digby 10/21/2008 02:00:00 PM |