Betty Winston Baye': From Community Organizer To 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
From community organizer to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
By Betty Winston Baye'
Yuk. Yuk. Yuk. Didn't they laugh at the very idea that Barack Obama's work as a $10,000-a-year community organizer could be taken seriously as useful experience for a potential president of the United States?
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The then-freshly-minted Republican vice president nominee, Sarah Palin, wowed the faithful in Minneapolis when she batted those big eyes and cooed, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." Rudy Giuliani also produced guffaws when he said that being a community organizer was "the first problem" on Obama's resume.
Yuk. Yuk. Yuk. But those who have the first laugh don't always have the last laugh. The reality is that a bad economy helped Obama win, but he also out-organized his opponents, relying in large part on lessons he learned as a 23-year-old organizer in Chicago's Altgeld Gardens housing project.
Had they been listening instead of laughing, Obama's opponents would have taken him more seriously from day one.
"It was in these neighborhoods that I received the best education I ever had," said Obama, reflecting on his work along the streets of Chicago. And his best lesson, he added, was learning to listen to people "as opposed to coming in with a predetermined agenda."
Again and again on the campaign trail, Obama telegraphed that if Americans elected him, he would listen, and not just to his closest friends and advisers, and certainly not just to people who are in the habit of saying yes to power, even when it's power run amok.
So yes, Obama promised that he'd be willing to meet and reason with America's enemies.
He was derided for that too. An American president agreeing to sit down with ragtag leaders of ragtag nations would signify weakness, not strength.
But many Americans found that Obama's willingness to at least talk, and more importantly to listen, resonated. Listening has been a road less traveled for the last eight years, for which the country is paying dearly.
Much was said during this campaign about who is and who isn't an elitist, but true power elites aren't in the habit of listening to people they presume to be their lessers, which is a determination often made based on wealth, not character.
Some of the wisest people aren't necessarily those who own the mansions. Some of the wisest people work in the mansions; they don't sit too high to miss the cracks in the foundation. So, Obama's habit of listening struck a chord in particular with the children and the grandchildren of people who worked in and around the mansions. I'm talking about people whose paw-paws and big mamas took those hand-me-down clothes and the scraps of food from other people's tables and re-fashioned them into Sunday-go-to-meeting outfits and holiday feasts. These are the people the world saw on television Tuesday night, weeping, saying that they never dreamed of seeing such a day and lamenting family and friends who are no longer around to share the moment.
Everybody I know had a moment. Mine came when Virginia was called for Obama. My father was born there in 1924. He despised the meanness of that place, and as a young man he fled. He never took his children back there to visit. Yet, that place, the cradle of the Confederacy, not only leaned to Obama this year, but in 1989 -- albeit by the barest of margins, less than half-a-percent -- elected America's first black governor. I was among a small group of newspaper columnists to visit Gov. Doug Wilder at the mansion. I told him my father's story, and before our delegation left he handed me a handwritten note that said, "Welcome to your father's house."
I'll never forget that.
My father's been dead 25 years, and oh the changes that this daughter has seen.
Meanwhile, it also occurs to me if Obama's opponents hadn't been laughing so hard, they might have realized much earlier how he tapped into the hunger of young people to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Obama must have sensed their weariness of hearing, over and over again, the stories about the heroism of young people in the past, as if there aren't any more mountains available to climb. And so, with the heart of a community organizer, Obama's quest for the presidency took on the aura of not just another political campaign but a movement with which young people could get down.
Given the serious and multiple messes that the next president is inheriting, the time isn't far off when President Barack Obama is going to disappoint some of the young and some of the old who supported him. That never fails to happen. In fact, it's in the very nature of the presidency to be confronted with messes.
But for this brief, shining moment, even in the face of so much stress and bad news, who can fault any American for lapsing into the sort of hopefulness signified in a popular slogan from my youth, "All power to the people!"
One of this election's most important messages for future aspirants to the White House is this: Never underestimate the power of a community organizer and an organized community.
Betty Winston Bayé's columns appear Thursdays in the Community Forum. Her e-mail address is bbaye@courier-journal.com.
Editor's comment: Betty:
Though some can't handle the TRUTH, I ask you to keep them coming.
By Betty Winston Baye'
Yuk. Yuk. Yuk. Didn't they laugh at the very idea that Barack Obama's work as a $10,000-a-year community organizer could be taken seriously as useful experience for a potential president of the United States?
Advertisement
The then-freshly-minted Republican vice president nominee, Sarah Palin, wowed the faithful in Minneapolis when she batted those big eyes and cooed, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." Rudy Giuliani also produced guffaws when he said that being a community organizer was "the first problem" on Obama's resume.
Yuk. Yuk. Yuk. But those who have the first laugh don't always have the last laugh. The reality is that a bad economy helped Obama win, but he also out-organized his opponents, relying in large part on lessons he learned as a 23-year-old organizer in Chicago's Altgeld Gardens housing project.
Had they been listening instead of laughing, Obama's opponents would have taken him more seriously from day one.
"It was in these neighborhoods that I received the best education I ever had," said Obama, reflecting on his work along the streets of Chicago. And his best lesson, he added, was learning to listen to people "as opposed to coming in with a predetermined agenda."
Again and again on the campaign trail, Obama telegraphed that if Americans elected him, he would listen, and not just to his closest friends and advisers, and certainly not just to people who are in the habit of saying yes to power, even when it's power run amok.
So yes, Obama promised that he'd be willing to meet and reason with America's enemies.
He was derided for that too. An American president agreeing to sit down with ragtag leaders of ragtag nations would signify weakness, not strength.
But many Americans found that Obama's willingness to at least talk, and more importantly to listen, resonated. Listening has been a road less traveled for the last eight years, for which the country is paying dearly.
Much was said during this campaign about who is and who isn't an elitist, but true power elites aren't in the habit of listening to people they presume to be their lessers, which is a determination often made based on wealth, not character.
Some of the wisest people aren't necessarily those who own the mansions. Some of the wisest people work in the mansions; they don't sit too high to miss the cracks in the foundation. So, Obama's habit of listening struck a chord in particular with the children and the grandchildren of people who worked in and around the mansions. I'm talking about people whose paw-paws and big mamas took those hand-me-down clothes and the scraps of food from other people's tables and re-fashioned them into Sunday-go-to-meeting outfits and holiday feasts. These are the people the world saw on television Tuesday night, weeping, saying that they never dreamed of seeing such a day and lamenting family and friends who are no longer around to share the moment.
Everybody I know had a moment. Mine came when Virginia was called for Obama. My father was born there in 1924. He despised the meanness of that place, and as a young man he fled. He never took his children back there to visit. Yet, that place, the cradle of the Confederacy, not only leaned to Obama this year, but in 1989 -- albeit by the barest of margins, less than half-a-percent -- elected America's first black governor. I was among a small group of newspaper columnists to visit Gov. Doug Wilder at the mansion. I told him my father's story, and before our delegation left he handed me a handwritten note that said, "Welcome to your father's house."
I'll never forget that.
My father's been dead 25 years, and oh the changes that this daughter has seen.
Meanwhile, it also occurs to me if Obama's opponents hadn't been laughing so hard, they might have realized much earlier how he tapped into the hunger of young people to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Obama must have sensed their weariness of hearing, over and over again, the stories about the heroism of young people in the past, as if there aren't any more mountains available to climb. And so, with the heart of a community organizer, Obama's quest for the presidency took on the aura of not just another political campaign but a movement with which young people could get down.
Given the serious and multiple messes that the next president is inheriting, the time isn't far off when President Barack Obama is going to disappoint some of the young and some of the old who supported him. That never fails to happen. In fact, it's in the very nature of the presidency to be confronted with messes.
But for this brief, shining moment, even in the face of so much stress and bad news, who can fault any American for lapsing into the sort of hopefulness signified in a popular slogan from my youth, "All power to the people!"
One of this election's most important messages for future aspirants to the White House is this: Never underestimate the power of a community organizer and an organized community.
Betty Winston Bayé's columns appear Thursdays in the Community Forum. Her e-mail address is bbaye@courier-journal.com.
Editor's comment: Betty:
Though some can't handle the TRUTH, I ask you to keep them coming.
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