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Resurrection of Story
By Ruth Yellowhawk
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With the election of our 44th President Barack Obama, stories are emerging, flowing freely alongside unrestrained tears. The stories go to the heart of America’s troubled past and her hope, and they began immediately. For the first time ever, I witnessed hardened journalists and brilliant news analysts, talking spontaneously and suddenly about grandma and grandpa, about mom and dad, about their own feelings.
Dr. Maya Angelou described the overwhelming pride she felt in her country as she allowed the soft tears to flow, while pointing out that this means so much to all Americans. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the always cool Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University shared that, “My colleagues and I laughed and shouted, whooped and hollered, hugged each other and cried. My father waited 95 years to see this day happen, and when he called as results came in, I silently thanked God for allowing him to live long enough to cast his vote for the first black man to become president. And even he still can’t quite believe it!â€
A reporter on CBS news pulled a photo from his office showing his relatives protesting in D.C. for the right to vote. Another newsman, previously a benign “talking head†to me, became human, became real, as he described his own upbringing with a Black dad and a White mom. “Their union was illegal in 25 states,â€Â he said, explaining the many indignities they suffered as a family – his dad forced to use separate bathrooms, the “take-out†food eaten in a car separated from the communal grace of a familiar restaurant.   His dad was continually harassed and once arrested for simply being in the same car with his wife.Â
Miscegenation, a white concept denoting the mixing of the blood, deemed unpalatable by law, was the greatest stain, the huge taboo that he lived with daily, and now, with Barack Obama, his own sense of possibility had, in an instant, changed.  He could begin to celebrate that his new President was beyond “Black,†beyond “White,†this he is a new hybrid altogether, a fuel efficient and quite sufficient human being.
Race brings all too often unspoken complexity to the fore. In a chapter in Sidney Poitier’s Spiritual Autobiography called “Why Do White Folks Love Sidney Poitier So,?â€Â the veteran actor describes the complications of being successful in a White Man’s world, in a White Man’s America. Like Barack, folks wanted to know why he was not more confrontational, and more angry. He reflected that “Nobility†and the idea of portraying “Exemplary Human Beings†wasn’t always palatable to Black folks who were rising up against a system that was full of inequity. And such portrayals were far from the every day experiences of Whites.
For the film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn – Whites characterized as “liberal†and “enlightened†- put Poitier through excruciating tests designed to see if he was up to the task of taking on what Spenser’s character calls a “pigmentation†problem.  While ultimately graciousness prevailed all the way around, the idea of entering into a creative partnership with a Black man, in which new paradigms were to be explored, was still foreign territory for these seasoned actors.
While this blizzard here in South Dakota has cocooned us into welcome reflection – I celebrate with my African-American Brothers and sisters that our paths have always been intertwined and connected. I want to hear these stories, of pain and denial, of family and complex feelings, of celebration and transcendence.
My best friend, a poet and professor at one of Ohio’s historically Black Colleges, Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, said simply: “ I just can’t believe it Ruth! Is this really America? Did my America do this?â€
This is America. This is a place where war hero and loving Grandpa John McCain can celebrate what we are bearing witness to, can say to a mostly White audience, with some booing the election results, in a private gathering in Prescott, Arizona, “I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating [Barack Obama], but offering our next president our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.â€
The people took to the streets of D.C., and filled them with pride, joy and unabashed patriotism. When this light cast from a collective clarity of purpose blazed in full force before them, the White House dimmed it’s own lights, succumbing to the grace of the Human Spirit.
What an unexpected opportunity has presented itself to us. To actually begin to listen – and to feel what so many have kept heretofore hidden, covered, and in many cases, plowed under the dark stained earth, is an unexpected gift. Such stories beckon, begging to be noticed like the watery unmarked graves of so many slaves, graves newly surfaced by the flow of water unleashed by recent hurricanes, and by this week’s torrent of tearful truths. These stories cannot be hidden any longer. Now is the time to really strive to understand the fortitude of the people who built this country, to fully witness the perseverance and dignity that Black Elders have always shared. After all, these are qualities we need to tap in the long days ahead.
Beyond our politics, beyond our entrenched views, beyond the fears about our economy, other stories and histories are rushing forth and we must begin listen to these stories. This spontaneous and welcome “Truth and Reconciliationâ€Â process has begun naturally, offering with it an un-mandated chance for us to learn not only what our history really means for all of us but what our future holds for our young.
Perhaps these stories could even portend the long hoped for opportunity to begin to hear from Native Peoples, and to really strive to find a new rhythm for this land. There is a pulse that has quickened, a truth that has begun to resurrect, an understanding that a person and a nation can hold multiple world views as a way to remake itself, if we can only listen to what has been held inside us for so long.
