Cynicism or the road less travelled?

I don't profess to understand the heart and soul of politicians. I was once privileged to be a part of an inter-racial team that captured the super majority of the Cleveland Board of Education back in the 90s. I served as Vice President and hatchet man in Personnel, too - but politics was not my calling so eventually I left that world. To be sure, I admired Cleveland's Black mayor, Michael R. White, supported many others in the political world and view politics as an essential part of maintaining the social good. I spent a few good years with Cesar Chavez to boot but I do not pretend to understand what makes politicians tick.

That is why I am equally mystified with the way many of my political friends are reacting to Obama's decision to have Pastor Rick Warren deliver the invocation at the inauguration. Now let me state at the outset that I mostly don't like the theology or positions Warren often advocates. He has been mean-spirited when it comes to civil rights for the LGBTQ community and fear-based in his patriotism (he once supported the assasination of the president of Iran.) I suspect that given very little effort, Rick Warren could be easily demonized - and that is part of the polarization I think Obama continues to try to overcome - the demonization of our opponents.

Harry Belafonte told Bono a fascinating story once when U2 first toured the US about how Dr. King and his strategists moved beyond demonization. It had to do with Bobby Kennedy. It seems that the civil rights movement had hit an impasse and Kennedy, as Attorney General, was not willing to be helpful. So some of King's lieutenants began to cuss and bad mouth him to which MLK said, "Stop - no more ugly talk. Say nothing more to me about Kennedy until you can find a way to have him work with us."

So the troops began to do their research and discovered that RFK was a devout Catholic - deeply committed and pious - as well as a product of his Irish American bigotry and racism. In time, they found a way to open a conversation with Kennedy's bishop - making their case with him about the sacred importance of true civil rights - and as the story goes, in time the bishop began to talk with Bobby... And eventually not only did Kennedy change but he became one of white America's greatest advocates for equal rights for people of color. Not because he was demonized but rather because King insisted on discovering his humanity and how they might find common ground.

What's more, after King's assasination, Bobby Kennedy found himself in Indianapolis speaking to those who wanted to loot and burn about his own brother's murder:

For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

Bono claims this truth as a core value for his work on behalf of HIV/AIDS projects in Africa. You may recall that famous picture of him walking into the White House with President Bush and giving the press corps the peace sign. Or the ONE campaign's pairing of political opponents on a TV ad who found common ground on aid to Africa. The story of Mandela and de Klerk comes to mind, too. I suspect that this is part of what is behind the Warren invitation.

I pray that I will never be so cynical as to believe this is pandering to the lowest common denominator or political expediency to some portion of the electorate. I don't see Obama through rose colored glasses, nor do I think he holds some messianic qualities that have now been tarnished. He is an earthen vessel - like all of us - and a broken vessel at that. This may be a politcal mistake as many are saying (with a shrillness that is deafening!) But it might also be walking on the road less traveled - the road that refuses to demonize your opponent - the road to trying to construct enough trust that common ground can be discovered.

There is one fascinating truth to American politics, however, that I do understand: we LOVE to love the underdog until... he or she succedes. Then we can't wait to knock them down and pull them through the mud. St. Paul told us, "Now we see as through a glass darkly, later we shall see face to face." More times than I can remember, his words have given me pause when I wanted to rush to judgment... and today does not look any different.