A Walk in President Obama’s Shoes

A Walk in President Obama’s Shoes

by @zizii2

(c) Callie Shell

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Something about President Obama in the video that surfaced from a gym in Poland this past week struck a chord with me. It was his groggy ordinariness as he peered mouth agape at the dumbbells possibly trying to mentally convert the metric weight measurements into our familiar imperial system. You could tell that he too like many of us was trying hard to drag his body kicking and screaming to do what his mind told him he MUST do – exercise for body and sanity’s sake. President Obama is no superhuman. The grimace on his face as he performed his routine in the gym told us that. Like us, he’d rather be doing something else. Mortal. Aging body.

The difference? He stuck with and plodded through his mission in the gym. No fanfare. No frills. Just keeping body and bloodstream functioning. Thirty minutes, we’re told he stayed there. Then next, he was suit-clad meeting European leaders. Meanwhile, all hell was breaking loose back stateside with GOP wingnut feral dogs viciously hounding a POW’s family with death threats, and an “all American” hometown into canceling a soldier’s homecoming celebration. A fashionably cynical postmodern schlock might probably find some grizzly irony in the juxtaposition of dumbbells gripped by a President’s sweaty hands in a Polish gym, and celebration buntings for a soldier’s return hurriedly torn down in an Idaho town scurrying into hiding as it is gripped by fear of the frightwing mob.

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This is our globalized world now of instantaneous communication, of a cacophony of events, vignettes and frozen images, of picture-snapping presidential oglers, and armed lynchmobs prowling for blood who’ve been set loose by hate-jocks saturating our airwaves — all jostling for our attention. All at once.
How does one stay true to a moral compass in the midst of this din, and extremes? How does one exercise strategic restraint in the face of blatant rightwing provocation? Difficult of all, how does one do all that AS LEADER of a diverse nation whose only glue is the pledge of CITIZENSHIP and creed – “all men (and women) are created equal”?

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In the run-up to the 2008 election, when so much hyperbole and thrills were running up some media legs (nothing sincere except to milk the rising African American political whiz for ratings gold), Candidate Obama modestly saw himself as a “transitional leader”. What did he mean? Few paid attention at the time, yet the clues lie in his book “Audacity of Hope” in which he described America reaching critical crossroads at which she either soars or fragments. To set this country soaring, Obama believed the toxic gunk that had trapped our nation in a thicket of policy, structural, and ideological dysfunction needed to be cleaned out. His Mama had taught him that when you see a problem you tackle it and not wait for someone else to solve it.

Source: The Women’s Eye

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In essence he saw himself as a plumber who takes on the unglamorous yet necessary task of unclogging the drains, septic tanks, draining swamps, and the like. He summed it up in his election night victory speech and even more soberly in his first Inauguration address. At the time many thought both speeches were Debbie downers and not commensurate with the public euphoria attending his election as First African American President. His own eye was NEVER off the ball. These were serious times demanding unvarnished grit and stamina to see the necessary task through to the end.

 

Source: JSOnline

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How does one cultivate such resolve? Why did the dashing young politician not buy into the frenzy that followed his national debut at the 2004 Democratic National Convention all the way through resounding victory on November 4, 2008? Sure, President Obama had and still has an ego and a surefooted confidence in his capabilities that some commentators insist is “arrogance” or even “hubris.” Absolutely, he’s brilliant and capable. And good looking. No apologies. No. Apologies!!!

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And yet he possesses a rare humility that peels back his high wattage smile to taut core sinews that plod away unrelentingly at unglamorous tasks. I argue that key phases in his life led him to hone these skills: Most importantly, marriage to Michelle Robinson has grounded him away from the fluff of politics and similarly sustained him through the orgy of hate he faces from detractors while in high office.

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But before this phase, he first learned as a child that try as hard as he wished, an absent father was never coming back. Secondly, he had to teach himself how to face head-on the tumult of ALWAYS being the different kid in any setting. No saviors. Janny Scott’s biography of Stanley Ann Duhnam tells the story of  President Obama’s Mom insisting that her son needed to fend for himself in the face of Indonesian kids bullying him, rather than save him. He learned not to be needy. Also steeled himself against the need for external validation, certainly not from admirers when the media hype overwhelmed the airwaves. And likewise when media storms rage, he possesses an internal shield against detractors too.

Source: Daily Beast

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The endless days spent sitting on the bench at his high school basketball games with the coach rarely calling on him to play, drove him nuts, as he recalled in _Dreams from My Father_. But it was a valuable lesson for his lofty perception of his own balling skills to be rudely clipped to size. Sit. Wait. This capacity has eluded many other world leaders, who have cracked when the adulation stopped.

(c) Callie Shell

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While Occidental College opened his eyes to causes greater than himself, and became the stage for his very first try at public speaking, it was his years in Columbia University pushing his body and mind to harsh limits that taught him ascetic fortitude. This is where he conquered youthful hubris, something Malcolm X also went through. Very important for SELF-CONTROL, sublimating baser instincts. This I believe is when he made the critical psychological switch from “Being” to “Doing”. Why? To Be is fraught with so much narcissistic baggage, impossible to attain let alone concretely measure. It is ultimately passive. A consumption of self. To Do, means to get outside of one’s own self. To Do is to apply one’s body, skills, however tentatively or competently to a task. It is active. President Obama reminded us of this point during the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act when he quoted LBJ’s saying “What the Hell is the presidency for if not to do something with it?”

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However, Doing something requires Empathy to give it a healthy direction, otherwise Doing can be destructive action. Sadly, many politicians never evolve out of their desire To Be. Thus, they never cultivate genuine empathy. Barack Obama was vilified when he said his Supreme Court pick would need to have Empathy because the capacity to envision the real life implications of the Court’s deliberations on actual people trumped abstract conceptions of laws. He also defined active empathy as the act of  Expanding one’s Moral Imagination, as well illustrated in this interview with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith when President Obama went to collect his Nobel Peace Prize in Dec 2010

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His self-conduct on the campaign trail be it doing the work of the home care giver cleaning, feeding and administering medication to an elderly disabled man, or honoring wait staff wherever he goes as President, has often been dismissed as photo-ops. Yet, he always follows up no matter how long it takes to ACT on the crux of the problems that those myriad ordinary people he meets, face. During the 2008 campaign, he, like other Democratic primary candidates took part in what was billed as “Walk a Day in the Shoes of…”, yet for him it was not just a feel-good photo-op. Last year the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was expanded to offer protections to home care workers.  Similarly he doggedly got the Pigford farmers settlement enacted, as he did the Native Americans settlement. And of course the big one, that cost enormous political capital and the deepening hatred of political opponents —  The Affordable care Act that now offers healthcare security to many millions of uninsured Americans.

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 That belief in Empathy was not a convenient political cloak he donned on the way to high office. No, it was forged in the streets he trod as a kid, as a community organizer, civil rights attorney, state and national legislator, all the way to the White house. Empathy was the oxygen he needed to practically survive his nomadic childhood and young adulthood, where he was always the stranger. It became second nature for him to connect to different peoples by seeking the common bonds first, because that was the most practical thing that he could DO, other than shrivel in a corner of loneliness or misery.

Source: Slate

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Sure these traits and beliefs are not unique to President Obama, which is precisely the point he has always tried to make. That his is not a rare story. The difference is we get to see him live out his principles and resoluteness in the full glare of media klieg lights and adversarial politics. We also see him make mistakes and pivot to correct them, with virulent mobs nipping at his heels, a poisoned media, relentlessly sullying his actions, while party support is tepid.
Yet at the end of both real and manufactured crises, he confounds his detractors time and time again. It is not magic. It is not luck. It is not a hoax. Rather, Barack Obama, with his faith in human decency and possibilities guiding him, learned to keep walking and working, whether the storm passes or not. Because that is what most unsung people in this global mosh-pit do. Survival. The alternative is untenable. That’s nihilism.

Source: New York Times

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