The Right to Be Human

Halfway through Obama’s speech yesterday, I started to tear up. Not because of the beauty of his words or the pain of the racial seams that he ripped open, but because it struck me as so divinely human.

Politics in the information age leaves me increasingly unsatisfied, with its near constant distillation. In college, I struggled to stay within the maximum page count when writing my Politics papers because with every point I brought up, I saw another connection, another layer, another complexity. I have been cursed with seeing mostly gray where others see black and white. Even with the beliefs that I hold closest, I can almost always see the other side, can see how in different circumstances, I could feel the opposite. And it’s frustrating that politicians (and the media) reduce everything to the lowest common denominator, to you’re either with us or against us, it’s either good or it’s evil.

What struck me about Obama’s speech was how novel it was to watch a politician refuse to simplify a complex issue. For thirty-five minutes, he stood at a podium and argued for his right to be human, to be fallible, to listen to and love someone with whom he disagrees. Somehow in our political process it became fact that by being friends with someone, you agree with and accept everything they say. That merely by listening to an opinion other than your own without fighting back, standing up, walking out, you are guilty of sharing it. And it worries me, because are these the kind of leaders we really want? The kind who can not even listen to differing opinions? Who parse down their groups of friends and associates into clones of themselves? Isn’t this precisely the kind of behavior that causes leaders to become hopelessly out of touch?

It was an emotional experience for me because I’ve been there. I think we’ve probably all been there. I have relatives and friends with whom I disagree vehemently on very important things, and whom I love just as passionately. Should I walk out of a family reunion because a great-aunt is prone to disparaging remarks about Jewish people? Perhaps. Have I challenged her on it? Of course. Have I ignored it? Sometimes. My point is that it’s something that I struggle with, that place where what I believe is wrong intersects with people I believe are good.

And even though I disagree with some of the decisions Obama made, I respect him for putting his humanity on display, for refusing to dumb down a complex piece of himself and his history, for treating us like adults who are capable of forming our own opinions. For asking us to look at his pastor as a whole man, with experiences that have shaped his beliefs, for asking us to try to see where he’s coming from. It was such a relief to hear a politician say, let’s look at why these feelings exist, from both sides, and let’s start from there.

So much of the anti-Americanism abroad extends from our government’s unwillingness to listen to those it disagrees with, to acknowledge the whys that exist behind every action. Would trying to understand and accept the humanity in our enemies at home and abroad make everything better? Of course not. Would it help us to find some common ground to build from? Perhaps. It’s so much easier to paint people we disagree with as Other, as non-human, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way. Obama chose to ask for his right to be human, and his right to accept the humanity in others, and to me, the answer feels downright simple.