Yes, We Can video from will.i.am.
Recently, I had to review what I thought I knew what Yes, We Can meant. Now I realize it's President Obama's core defining vision also informing his political strategy. Unity creates change.
Yes We Can is part of an activist lineage ranging from Gandhi to César Chávez. Both are known for taking fasts at critical points. Sí, se puede emerged from Chávez's 25-day fast in 1972.
In 1952 Chávez was living in a barrio in San Jose called Sal Si Puedes (get out if you can), a section of the city "dirtier and uglier than the others." Later, he would change this negative image into a positive one for his worker's movement, "Sí, se puede" (Yes, we can).
—The Words of César Chávez
...our slogan "Sí Se Puede" was born, about the fifth day of the fast. We had just come from California where everywhere we went, farm workers were fighting. In Arizona the people were beaten. You could see the difference. Every time we talked about fighting the law [Farm-Bureau-sponsored bill the union wanted vetoed was delivered by highway patrol and signed by the governor 45 minutes after it passed Arizona Senate], people would say, "No se puede, no se puede — it's not possible. It can't be done."
My brother Richard mentioned that at a staff meeting in the motel at Wickenburg, and when it was Dolores's turn, she said, "From now on, we're not going to say, 'No se puede,' we're going to say, 'Sí se puede!'"
I picked up on it immediately. "Okay, that's going to be the battle cry!"
—Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa
The lyrics in the video are from Obama's concession speech in New Hampshire on January 8, 2008. Ironically, it was after New Hampshire my mother decided to vote for Obama. Before, she patiently explained why she had to vote carefully so her vote wouldn't be "wasted". My mother voted strategically to support the Democratic Party. She recalls the shift of the Black Vote from the Republican to the Democratic Party.
Here's how candidate Obama began his speech:
You know, a few weeks ago, no one imagined that we'd have accomplished what we did here tonight in New Hampshire. No one could have imagined it. For most of this campaign, we were far behind. We always knew our climb would be steep.
My mother said it was the results of the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries that convinced her to vote for Obama. Mom preferred Obama, because of his youth and commitment. He seemed to also suggest that it was time to make the impossible possible. When my mom said New Hampshire, I said: But Mom, he lost. I know, she said, but he got enough of the vote to convince me that he could win. She believed voting for Obama would not waste her vote.
My mother drank from coloreds only fountains when she was young. Sneaking into cinemas to watch movies in the coloreds only section her mother didn't want her to sit in. This may sound really weird. Even though she voted for an African-American, mom (perhaps for the first time) was able to vote at a ballot box not labeled: coloreds only. Because... we are not as divided as our politics suggests.