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Special Issue, August 30, 2008

Dear Colleague:  

    Barack Obama's nomination by the Democratic party as the next President of the United States, in a stadium packed with 80,000 people and to a national audience of 40 million, is widely touted as a historic occasion for this country—and, if elected in November, for the whole world. Why for the whole world? I think it comes down to the ability of an irresistible ideal to change the course of humankind. America's power is, historically, the power of an ideal—something we tend to forget with the rise of America's military supremacy, but which Bill Clinton reminded us last Wednesday when he said in Denver, "Our ability to sway the world lies in the power of our example, and not in the example of our power." I've never quite understood the term "American Exceptionalism," which historians like to bandy about. So I interpret it my own way: I see the "Exceptionalism" as grounded in an exalted ideal, embraced at the country's founding, that is unique to America. Even today, can any European country, so proud of its liberalism, match the political miracle that is happening right before our eyes here? Is a black Frenchman a plausible candidate for the presidency of the French Republic, a colored man a likely chancellor of the Reich?

    I came to America as a 20-year old grad student in 1951. In 1973, I was naturalized a citizen. In the course of time, I became—as the saying goes—"more Catholic than the Pope." I must have been an embarrassment to my born-and-bred American friends when I kept admiring customs and practices that they thought, in their sophistication, as either too folksy or inauthentic, an egregious example being the Midwesterner's habit of saying, "Have a good day." I believed in the fundamental goodness and wisdom of the people—the salt of the earth. I believed, therefore, in democracy. So imagine my profound shock when George W. Bush was elected by the people, not once but twice; and that George W., in his first inaugural address, stood before Congress and urged a constitutional amendment that would make ten percent of the country's citizens permanently second-class—to the roar of approval! Listening to Bush and watching legislators on one side of the aisle stand up to applaud made me feel, at first, uncomprehending, then, nauseous and disgusted.

    Many African-Americans wept with joy Thursday night. Eighty-eight-year old P. T. Cochran was one of them. He could hardly believe what he saw on the TV screen. Yet, in a sense, he was not totally surprised. Something happened in 1944, when he was a student at Wilberforce University in Ohio, that foreshadowed, for him, the possibility of the great event in Denver sixty-four years later. In 1944, Cochran and a friend went to Xenia, a neighboring town, to see a movie. The ticket taker refused to admit them on the grounds that no more tickets were being sold. The two friends stood outside the cinema for six hours to see whether this was the case. They returned the next day and waited some more, telling meanwhile their friends at Wilberforce what they were doing. Wilberforce students contacted students at Antioch College. Together, black and white students marched to the cinema. They all stood and waited until the two friends were finally let in. Cochrane was much moved by this display of student solidarity. And I was too, as I read the account in today's New York Times. So, there is decency—a fundamental sense of fairness—in Americans. Of course, there is, but how easily it gets buried by a bigoted political leadership. How easily America, with all its wealth and power, can seem to the world—and perhaps even to itself—ordinary, mean-spirited, and far removed from the Exceptionalism that is its birth right.

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu