The storm is coming. But right now let’s spend some time digging into—more like savoring, actually—the words of our country’s 44th president. I’ve done so before, on this site and elsewhere, but this will be the last time I’ll be able to while he still serves in that office.
As a historian who focuses on how multiethnic societies try to create a sense of peoplehood—to encourage, in our case, Americans of different backgrounds to see themselves as members of one national community—I’ve described this kind of national identity as democratic pluralism. Political figures can have a tremendous impact (positive or negative) on a country’s ability to achieve this goal. We’ve never had a president understand this with the depth that Barack Obama has.
One of the most important ways to strengthen that sense of peoplehood in a country is to talk about its history in an inclusive way. Take a look at how Obama did that in his farewell address:
For 240 years, our nation’s call to citizenship has given work and purpose to each new generation. It’s what led patriots to choose republic over tyranny, pioneers to trek west, slaves to brave that makeshift railroad to freedom. It’s what pulled immigrants and refugees across oceans and the Rio Grande, pushed women to reach for the ballot, powered workers to organize. It’s why GIs gave their lives at Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima; Iraq and Afghanistan – and why men and women from Selma to Stonewall were prepared to give theirs as well.
In a one-paragraph narrative of great American heroes, the president managed to integrate many different kinds of struggles—ones traditionally included in history books of past generations and plenty that were not. The American Revolution and other military triumphs stand alongside the fights at home for racial, gender and LGBT equality, as well as for greater economic justice. Obama honored the immigrants from other continents as well those from next door so as to include members of various ethnic groups too often ignored.
Hearing oneself represented in the narrative of our national history can help each of us to feel more connected to America and to all the other people represented as well. Tying Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima to Stonewall and Selma helps strengthen the bonds between those who might identify more directly with one event over another by showing that all are crucial to our country’s development.
So that’s what we mean when we say America is exceptional. Not that our nation has been flawless from the start, but that we have shown the capacity to change, and make life better for those who follow.
Yes, our progress has been uneven. The work of democracy has always been hard, contentious and sometimes bloody. For every two steps forward, it often feels we take one step back. But the long sweep of America has been defined by forward motion, a constant widening of our founding creed to embrace all, and not just some.
In addition to looking at history, the president analyzed where we stand now. He acknowledged, as he always does, that we have made real progress on racism, but reminded us that we still have more ground to travel. Doing so allows him to reach those who are potentially supportive of a more robust approach to the fight for equal rights, but who might shut down when told, for example, that things haven’t improved since the 1960s. Reaching out to those middle-of-the-road people is crucial to moving them, incrementally, in a more positive direction on race.
There’s a second threat to our democracy – one as old as our nation itself. After my election, there was talk of a post-racial America. Such a vision, however well-intended, was never realistic. For race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society. I’ve lived long enough to know that race relations are better than they were ten, or twenty, or thirty years ago – you can see it not just in statistics, but in the attitudes of young Americans across the political spectrum.
The president is not preaching to the converted, but to those who could go either way. Once he’s got them listening, Obama then can reach them when he talks about the future:
But we’re not where we need to be. All of us have more work to do.
After all, if every economic issue is framed as a struggle between a hardworking white middle class and undeserving minorities, then workers of all shades will be left fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw further into their private enclaves. If we decline to invest in the children of immigrants, just because they don’t look like us, we diminish the prospects of our own children – because those brown kids will represent a larger share of America’s workforce. And our economy doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. Last year, incomes rose for all races, all age groups, for men and for women.
This is the key. If we can get more whites and minorities to see themselves as part of a single, American community, we can gain the support necessary to make real, lasting progressive change that benefits everyone. Those who want to keep wealth concentrated at the top will always seek to pit the races against one another. Obama understands that we need to see people who are different from us as part of us.
Going forward, we must uphold laws against discrimination – in hiring, in housing, in education and the criminal justice system. That’s what our Constitution and highest ideals require. But laws alone won’t be enough. Hearts must change. If our democracy is to work in this increasingly diverse nation, each one of us must try to heed the advice of one of the great characters in American fiction, Atticus Finch, who said “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
For blacks and other minorities, it means tying our own struggles for justice to the challenges that a lot of people in this country face – the refugee, the immigrant, the rural poor, the transgender American, and also the middle-aged white man who from the outside may seem like he’s got all the advantages, but who’s seen his world upended by economic, cultural, and technological change.
For white Americans, it means acknowledging that the effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn’t suddenly vanish in the ‘60s; that when minority groups voice discontent, they’re not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness; that when they wage peaceful protest, they’re not demanding special treatment, but the equal treatment our Founders promised.
For native-born Americans, it means reminding ourselves that the stereotypes about immigrants today were said, almost word for word, about the Irish, Italians, and Poles. America wasn’t weakened by the presence of these newcomers; they embraced this nation’s creed, and it was strengthened.
This section is vintage Obama. He called for empathy, and then showed how to strengthen it. He talked about Americans of color empathizing with the struggles of a working-class white man. By doing so, he’s telling that white man that his concerns matter to minorities. On the other hand, when that economically vulnerable white man (or woman) hears about their privilege, in too many cases they simply shake their head in disgust at the idea that someone could consider them privileged. At that point they stop listening.
Instead, Obama’s language can get more of those vulnerable whites nodding their head yes—so that when he next pivoted to talking about how Americans of color are telling the truth on racism today, those whites might just be more willing to hear it. He followed the same formula regarding the relationship between immigrants and the native-born. This is how you build empathy, and build support in the fight for justice and equality.
In this final message to our country as president, Barack Obama again did what he does best: he crafted a vision of American national identity that includes all of us, one that centers on equality and justice. The next four years will surely make us appreciate all the more that we had a president who does so.
Ian Reifowitz is the author of Obama’s America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity (Potomac Books).