There we are! See? That's us, proving that we were there, all bundled up and sniffly and rosy. Yes, C., I wore the Teletubby hat. Don't I look smashing?I'm posting a bunch of shots from the crowd now, as I think it's what I'll remember most from this day. And trust me-- my pictures do it no justice at all. The deluge of humanity was, indeed, something to behold... even from my vantage point which was definitely on the fringes of the mix.
The two above shots are of the throngs of people walking down 18th Street towards the National Mall. From sidewalk to sidewalk, we filled the streets. It was easy to forget that all our little tributaries in the onslaught were usually typical, congested, urban corridors as we brazenly marched down the middle.
Here's some folks cheering heartily right after Justice Roberts said, "Congratulations, Mr. President!" Gah! Such communal elation. He could barely get it out of his mouth before we were screaming. You just can't even imagine it if you weren't there.
To give you some bearings, our shivering threesome staked a claim on a little plot of land about midway between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, overlooking the Reflecting Pool. We had a pretty good view of a Jumbo-tron across the pool and we could hear everything on the enormous projection speakers. We stood next to a couple from Chicago who'd been in Grant Park on Election Night of '08. Also squeezed in next to us was a heavily bearded fellow and his wife, both of whom wore loads of Obama paraphernalia, all of it written in Hebrew.
I don't know if these two shots give you any idea of the masses, because you really can't see the thick cluster clotted around the base of the Washington Monument very well, but they just kept coming and coming.
And here we have a small smattering of the crowd attempting to depart. Again, the whole street ahead was filled across its entire breadth. Hooray for community participation!So, so amazing. Nevermind that the speech was largely platitudinous and that poem was a little (a lot) schlocky and sentimental. Being there would have been worth it no matter what.
Wish you all were here. Bet you do too!
16 comments:
Would that I had been there. Glad you were. That's great. A real piece of history. The mountaintop!
Though this expedition was not without its stressors, it was more than worth it. I do, indeed, feel incredibly lucky to have been part of it-- to have seen it all. But moreover, I can't help but think we're all lucky to have him. Everyone around me seemed to be thinking the same thing. It was an incredible surge of excitement and bonhomie. As soon as they presented him as President, we CONGRATULATED each other. Dewy-eyed strangers of every color under the sun shook my hand. Being here, it is hard not to think we're all on the verge of watching something amazing.
Indeed: Intelligent. Thoughtful. Good character. Good judgment. Aiming to do the right thing. And the American people were able to vote for him despite his race; to see the person instead of the complexion. There has been some progress in this country. It would have been a damned shame otherwise. Somebody on TV said that they had never seen such a large crowd, and EVERYBODY smiling!
"the American people were able to vote for him despite his race..."
This strikes me as an incredibly dubious thing to say. For better or worse, I think a lot of folks voted for him BECAUSE of his race... which really is equally as dubious as voting for him in spite of his race. If you were paying attention to what this man stands for, his race was probably pretty far from your thoughts in that voting booth.
True enough, it's impossible to divorce the man from his countenance-- and I don't think we should really try-- but my point is that his race is largely irrelevant at this point. He's leading black America but only insomuch as he's now heading up an incredibly heterogeneous population.
Back in November, he could have been purple and he still would have been the right man for the job. Perhaps it's naive of me to think that his race WASN'T a major hang-up for white poll-goers in the first place... but, I mean, I continue to think that it's an offensive conceit to assume that people who look more like me than not could be dissuaded from voting in their best political interest by the color of a candidate's skin.
A couple months before the election, I went to my dentist. Both she and her hygienist are black women. They proceeded to have a conversation across my prone body about how they just knew white people would never vote for Obama. Of course, we'd already discussed that I was definitely an Obama supporter, so I suppose they didn't think they'd be offending me. But I was still troubled, if not outright offended, by this idea that all any of us ever see about this man is that he's the first black president. I switched dentists after that (for other reasons than her troubling assertions about how white people think-- she kept charging me for repairs done on her shoddy work!). But I really was bugged and saddened that the going thinking is STILL that white people have to "get over the race issue" in order to see merit in the man. And similarly, I'm troubled by the idea that black people wanted to vote for him simply because he is "one of their own." It's just all so reductive and underestimates the voting public to an incredibly large degree. C'mon. We're smarter than that.
"but my point is that his race is largely irrelevant at this point." Okay. THAT is where the progress is found.
Could you explain the significance of the event, in light of the fact that "the speech was largely platitudinous and that poem was a little (a lot) schlocky and sentimental?"
I mean, despite thinking Obama was easily the best candidate, I fail to see how the occasion is notable for any reason other than his race.
Perhaps I'm underestimating just how much people are impressed by him.
Oh, Alex-- here you are again, popping up just to be contrary, eh?
I feel like I need to approach this question from a couple different angles. Firstly, the inauguration itself both was and was not about race. I'll get back to what I mean there in a minute, though. What I was talking about above, however, was the election and how I object to the notion that the collective mass of white America could potentially lack good sense and thereby fail to elect Obama simply because they're hung up on his race. I find that insulting and I prefer to think that thinking people who voted -- for OR against Obama -- did so with due consideration for something besides his heritage. So, I think your question fails to make the distinction between the hordes of people who descended upon the Mall for the inauguration and the hordes of people who descended upon their local polling places last November. And that's a really important distinction.
Now, as for whether the event itself was about race--- well, yeah, it's hard to deny that Obama's race is part of what makes his presidency historically important. Of course it does. But to say that's the ONLY reason we were all so fucking excited to be there, again, sells us all short.
For the majority of my adult life, I've felt helplessly disenfranchised by my government. Bush was "elected" the first time around when I was 23. It was a heartbreaking blow that I took personally. It was even worse when it happened again four years later. Perhaps it's because I want so very much to think highly of the voting public (see comments about the election above) that I was so terribly disappointed.
As a result, in many ways, being there for this event felt like an enormous communal healing. We've all been wounded and disadvantaged by the poor management of a man who was never qualified for the job in the first place. Being part of the highly symbolic moment of the changeover of power IS meaningful in a way that transcends the racial component of it. Or at least it was for me-- and, judging by the boos I heard coming from the crowd every time a member of the Bush family passed across a Jumbo-tron, it was for a lot of other folks too. And that's why images like this one (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bcnhvlH-zG4/SXZtsV--W5I/AAAAAAAAAnk/F2t9RBx3fvw/s1600-h/20wave_600.jpg) feel so incredibly poetic.
And even more than that, the event was about participation. And community. Those people in that crowd felt their views were at the very least REFLECTED by our collective choice of this man. People wanted to be there because they wanted to celebrate what we, as voters, had accomplished together. Again, reducing that incredible feeling of camaraderie and sheer gratefulness that we have a government system that allows for our participation in the first place to an assertion that the event was just about race is really unfair.
You say you underestimate how impressed people are with him in particular-- and I think that, too, is beside the point. Our country's been run through the ringer for the last eight years. We're FAR from being out of the woods as of yet. This election and this inauguration were about the man to a degree, but they're also about US-- the collective American electorate. It was cathartic for us to be there-- so goddamn many of us.
It just strikes me as inordinately cynical to for anyone to assume that the importance of the event could be summed up in the word "race." It was just more. I just was.
IT just was, I meant.
I was pro-Obama throughout the campaign, yet I was annoyed by the creepy HOPE posters and the very real phenomenon of "Obamamania." It's hard not to see this as more of the same.
I mean, what does it say about Obama if the celebration at his inauguration was really about the catharsis from Bush's departure? I like the guy, I think he's competent, but what is the victory here? Against McCain?
Not to appeal to your ego or anything, but how can you relate to such a crowd when you are smarter than, what, 90% of them? Are you really going to connect to their reasoning in any way other than, "Well, we like the same guy?"
As for your final line... I think history will agree with me. The headlines already do.
OK, first of all, I'm more than a little troubled by the assumption that I might get off on some sort of intellectual superiority trip when comparing myself to the ever-denigrated "masses." I actually think I work pretty hard to NOT do that. Moreover, temperament-wise, I'm a rather solitary soul. It's rare that I actually feel like I'm part of the working gears of my own community. Snearing at the atypical instances wherein I DO feel like I'm part of that is really not where I'm at.
And yes, a lot of folks came to their votes for reasons very different from mine. But a lot of folks probably voted for reasons that weren't that dissimilar to mine, too. That doesn't take anything a way from the fact that communal celebration is a valuable experience.
Now, am I wary of the messianic stature Obama is acquiring in the public consciousness? You bet! Of course I am. He's way more of a centrist than I would like for him to be and he's bound to make some compromises on things I don't think should be compromised.
It's inevitable that, after this very inflated balloon of good will releases some of its gas, a lot of folks will be disappointed that he isn't the second coming after all. But do I blame folks who are less politically aware than I am, less nerdy than I am, for getting swept up in the excitement? No! Not a bit! It's natural. Is it going to suck when everyone comes back down to earth? Well, yeah. But that too is inevitable.
Oh, and the headlines agree with you? Headlines which are known for their nuanced understanding of collective psychology? Yeah... I'm not buying it.
What your faithful blog-readers would like to hear are some of the practical details of the expedition. Could you get on the subway, or did you walk both ways? Was the cold as bad as it might seem, or did the excitement actually keep you warmer than otherwise might be the case? Did you go to the event without having to "go", or did you repair to port-o-potties, if they were accessible? Mainstream media did little to convey these details. Can you?
The Metro wasn't particularly crowded at all. On the way down there, it was no more crowded than an average rush-hour. And on the way back, we got into a nearly empty car. So, that wasn't too bad at all. I was pretty surprised, really, given all the reports of packed Metro cars that the news told us to anticipate.
We still had to walk a good 12 blocks down to the mall from Farrgut North station, though. The temperature was actually in the low 30s, but the wind chill made it feel more like 16. I know my feet got really cold, despite my shearling boots and double layer of socks. And also my face and hands. Jen spotted a street vender selling handwarmers-- and she bought a pair of those. She shared, too. That helped bunches.
But other than that, I felt pretty OK in all my woolens. Standing down at the reflecting pool, we were facing the sun with the wind to our backs, so I think that helped too. I didn't really feel too much of the cold until we turned around to head back to the metro. At that point, we were walking in the shadows and against the wind and that wasn't really any fun at all. Plus, we'd been standing in it for about 5 hours by that point, so I suppose it makes sense that we were all feeling good and ready to get inside.
We made two little pit stops at different coffee shops-- one on the way down and one on the way back. There were long, long walls of portapotties lining the entire length of the Mall, so we certainly could have availed ourselves if we'd needed, but I don't think any of us were in a mood to drop trow in the out of doors on that particular day.
I think my greatest discomfort might have been wearing earmuffs for that long. I have sticky-outy ears. They complain if smushed against my head for several hours. Other than that, though, I think we prepared well and knew what we were getting into, so I think we weathered the whole process remarkably well.
Cool. Thanks.
This is a wild thing to say:
"Not to appeal to your ego or anything, but how can you relate to such a crowd when you are smarter than, what, 90% of them? Are you really going to connect to their reasoning in any way other than, "Well, we like the same guy?""
Personally, and I don't know if saying this destroys my rep as a cynical bastard, but I can relate to the people at a Slayer concert and a Ralph Nader rally and a Baptist church service. Humans are capable of all sorts of things.
Agreed. I guess I wasn't real sure how such a thought would "appeal to my ego," seeing as I don't think I have a "cynical bastard" reputation of my own... do I? Maybe you could offer lessons?
Me, I voted for the geriatric. However, this is a sublime moment in history, and it's bound to put a happy face on our image abroad, not to mention giving voice to the aspirations of millions. I wish him all the success in the world, because not to is to wish failure on the American dream. I've recently discovered, by a long and torturous process that my g- grandfather was Choctaw and his wife, my g- grandmother was black. Their pictures certainly suggested that, and now that I've done the work, I'm patting myself on the back for sticking with it. Sincerely, Smoldering in the Ruins of Nashvegastan
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