Indian Summer

This is something that never happens in California. The leaves are flying off the trees by the bucketful, and the sun is shining through the remaining red foliage, making the ground look like a bushel of squash. The air is warm even when it’s cloudy. Last night I had a dream about going to outer space. I don’t remember anything particularly notable happening. I just remember getting in a spaceship, taking off, easily breaking through the ozone layer, and being surrounded by stars. Other passengers of the ship were able to access the internet in the air. Something about the experience made me incredibly happy. I even slept in so that I’d be able to stay there longer. And then I woke up, and read, and took a shower. And I got a phone call from Powell’s, a great Hyde Park bookstore. I got the job!
„I now work in a bookstore,“ I thought as I walked down the sidewalk with my bike in one hand and my phone in the other. Leaves swirled everywhere. A friend passed by on the opposite sidewalk and waved. I spent the afternoon reading and eating lentil soup in a courtyard.
The leaves swirl two blocks west from my apartment building, and settle on a large lawn. There’s the home of Barack Obama. His entire block is cordoned off and guarded 24 hours a day by Secret Service. The synagogue across the street from his house had to write up an official guest list two days ahead of Rosh Hashanah for review by the federal government. We all know the reason why the security is there, and it’s not a pretty one.
Racism is not a specifically American problem, but we have a special kind of racism here. Irresponsible policy and overt racism kept former slaves in a position of economic servitude until well after the end of the Civil War. The vast majority of the country’s black population is still poor, marginalized, and virtually disconnected from political life. I live on the virtually all black South Side of Chicago. When a student at my school was killed last spring, the news rang out far and wide. Two weeks later, two pregnant black women were found burnt and beaten to death in dumpsters less than a mile from my home. All they got was a police blotter. We’ve thrown our grandmothers’ lawn jockeys into the basement and turned up the Luda, but American whites are still racist.
A recent NY Times Opinion piece discusses the most horrifying manifestation of this latent racism I’ve scene in years. Only in America would a candidate encourage his voting base to decry the opponent because of the color of his skin. I’m voting for Obama for the same reason that he has been followed by Secret Service longer than any other presidential candidate in national history. He has the capacity and the information to bring that most uniquely American problem into the public eye.
After the Holocaust, Theodor Adorno lamented the fact that no one was allowed to say anything bad about the Jews anymore. He reasoned that as long as anti-semitic opinions remained unvoiced they remained unchallenged. Our opinions have remained unchallenged and–until now–unvoiced. Here we are, the silent racists of the 21st century, delighting in our Indian Summer as the great-great-grandchildren of slaves get shot on the bus going home from school. As they try in vain to get competent medical care. Maybe, by the time this weather anomaly has passed, we’ll have a president who actually cares about the needs of the whole country, and not just the „AMERCAINS.“ Or maybe we’ll sit here a little longer, staring up at the sun.