The Audacity of Hope

Some years ago when I was in art school studying photography I was lucky enough to have a very charismatic lecturer that really left an impression. He was early 40’s and had that sort of Robert Redford, too-much-time-in-the-sun, creased face and a mob of ginger hair. He walked around with a worldly swagger, like someone who’d seen it all before. His one lasting quote was regarding stock photography, “editors have seen a million photos of the Eiffel Tower – but they haven’t seen mine.” Some of my fellow classmates took this as pure ego and blew it off as the ramblings of an over-praised photographic-savant who’d Od’d on his own Kool-Aid long ago. I saw it a bit different. We all have our own opinions and impressions – even the obvious is open to interpretation.

Last night as I sat in front of my television for hours and hours on end watching election results – I thought of the Eiffel Tower.

To try and surmise the gravitas of the Obama win in the election is like trying to explain water to the thirsty or food to the starving. This goes beyond what we needed and reaches further into a more primal elemental sector of our collective consciousness. This is the antidote to a poison that has been working its way through our body. Killing us from the inside, spreading like a cancer, threatening the very existence of our society. Am I overstating it? I don’t think so. America was a train wreck in slow motion – it was like watching a good friend destroy themselves. It needed an intervention and that’s what it got.

But this wasn’t a fire and brimstone, shape up or ship out sort of reaffirmation. No, it was a loving embrace that promised nothing but potential. For a long time America lost its way. The quest of the American dream was so badly off course that it looked for a time that salvation was too far away to ever be a reality. That was until Barack Obama arrived on the scene. America was built upon a foundation of eternal optimism, the notion that dreams can come true. For too long those dreams had turned into nightmares – but now because of the notion of hope and the resurrection of that most American of dreams, the ship is finally heading back onto its intended course.

Yesterday the generation that has no heroes stood up and chose a new direction for America. They chose to elect an African American man to the most powerful position in the world. This fact should not be glossed over – only half a century ago, a black man was not even allowed to ride at the front of a bus in America, drink out of the same fountain or attend some universities – now a black man is president. For a nation to look beyond race with a history of such painful race relations is a true sign that things are finally moving on.

Obama has been accused of being a political lightweight and merely a good orator. I think that is just what America needs – inspiration. Will Obama be a good president? I don’t know. Will he be better then Bush? Of course he will, fuck even Palin would be better then Bush. What I am so enamoured with, what the whole world is enamoured with is the excitement, the energy and the hope that this man has fostered. It is a dark time in the world – economics are looking worse then ever, there is much war, poverty and threats to the environment. Solving these problems will take effort and sacrifice – finally we (lets be honest, no matter where you live in the world, ’we’ is appropriate) have a leader that will lead us through the dark and into the light.

As a kid I remember asking my father what it was like to hear JFK speak – I know now my kids will ask me the same thing, but they won’t be speaking of a long dead president. They’ll be talking about President Barack Obama.

-sk