A Reason to Believe_ Lessons From an Improbable Life - Deval Patrick [75]
Later, when Obama took the stage to deliver his acceptance speech, I sat at the back of the Massachusetts delegation and tried to avoid talking to anyone. I just wanted to listen, see, and absorb. Young people, clearly volunteers, were at once stunned and emboldened to realize that they could shape history. Old people, especially elderly blacks, randomly shook their heads, looked off into the distance, or smiled softly. Everyone was transfixed. By the time Obama took the stage, every seat was full—and the roar filled the night sky. The first thing I noticed was the expression on his face: the gravitas, the humility, the realization that this wasn’t just a political rally in a Colorado football stadium but a turning point in American history.
We talk about these idealistic American values—freedom, equality, reconciliation—but more often than not they’re the stuff we reserve for public holidays or special occasions. After the parades and holiday tributes, we put them back on the shelf and return to the banalities of everyday life. And then this young, charismatic man comes along and invites us to believe in them, and he is a black man—someone from a despised quarter of the society—who makes the election not about race but about those very values. After the speech, reporters kept sticking microphones in my face and asking if I felt a new sense of pride because a black man was accepting the Democratic nomination to be president of the United States. That was part of it, no doubt. I felt great pride. But it was the message—the tangible hope, the bold idealism—that was the transcendent part for me. That renewal of faith in the possible was what made everything different.
I got a message from an aide that Obama wanted to see me right after the program. I obliged, but I really didn’t want to go. I just wanted to try to take it in, to imprint on my memory the good and wise and proud thing that the people of America had just done and were about to do in November. But I dutifully went backstage after the lights went down and greeted the Obamas as well as Joe and Jill Biden and their families as they came off the stage. I hardly said a word.
Barack had one question: “Was it all right?”
I just nodded.
Obama’s landslide election in November confirmed that his message had been heard across the country and that he had lit a spark of idealism for a new generation of Americans. I was elated not only because I felt he would change the direction of the country, but because his victory offered a new template for appealing to voters’ better angels.
But I’m not naive. When the tides of cynicism run so deep, change will come slowly. I understand why so many people in our society, young and old, have lost trust in many of our society’s core institutions and in the men and women who lead them. The headlines are a drumbeat of betrayal: the greed of Wall Street, the half-truths and outright lies of politicians, the steroid use among professional athletes, the shrill tone of talk radio and cable TV, the tawdry sex scandals too numerous to mention. At some level we have come to expect disappointment and bad examples from prominent people and public institutions.
But defeatism is precisely the wrong message. We need to remind ourselves that, individually and collectively, we can do better. I know that’s true, because I see that American ideals are more powerful than any one American who might undermine them. Those ideals were undeniable one summer day in 2008, when I attended the funeral of a soldier.
When I first became governor, I was reluctant to attend the funerals of servicemen and servicewomen from Massachusetts. I certainly wanted to acknowledge their sacrifice and to offer whatever comfort I could to the families, but I worried that my presence would be misinterpreted as grandstanding. My staff urged me to attend, and I’m glad they did. I’ve tried to be at each one. Though I’ve been asked to speak, I never do. I listen, I pray, I pay my respects. I simply want the family and loved ones to know that the citizens of Massachusetts