One Thing You can Say for the President: The Man Can Sing

     We alread knew that

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQx7AzjHjUA


     but yesterday after  he was just pheno

     http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/06/26/obama-sings-amazing-grace-during-pinckney-eulogy-sot-nr.cnn

     Overall his euology in Charleston yesterday couldn't have been more powerful.

    “Reverend Pinckney … conducted himself quietly and kindly and diligently,” said the president, speaking on the College of Charleston’s campus. “He encouraged progress not by pushing his ideas alone but by seeking out your ideas, partnering with you to make things happen."

   “He was full of empathy and fellow feeling, able to walk in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes,” Obama said. That’s a perfect description of grace. As spiritual leaders, philosophers and humanitarians through time have shown us, being able to feel what others feel, see things from their perspective, is at the essence of grace. You forget yourself and reach out to others. (Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela: all experts at getting out of their own heads and making deep connections with others.)"

     "Obama expanded his meditation on grace to include a wider circle of goodness and giving. He spoke of  “the grace of the families who lost loved ones; the grace that Reverend Pinckney would preach about in his sermons; the grace described in one of my favorite hymnals, the one we all know — Amazing Grace."

   “According to the Christian tradition,” he continued, “grace is not earned. Grace is not merited. It’s not something we deserve. Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God.”

    " I’m fascinated by grace, and I’ve written a forthcoming book about it, “The Art of Grace.” This is why I was so astounded to hear Obama sing “Amazing Grace” and read his eloquent words on a subject that just isn’t discussed and explored in such a public way anymore. He’s right to bring it up, to show us how grace can be perceived, and that it is worth noticing. Grace is an ancient notion, and it has a kind of universal hold on us — whether we’re religious or not, many of us relate to the idea of grace as a comfort to the soul, a form of love, a way to get through difficulty. Being human can hurt. It hurts because we are — most of us — compassionate creatures. We are linked to one another in the way that animals, say, are not. We can hear about a senseless shooting in a church miles away and feel our hearts drop on the floor."

    "But if we didn’t feel this pain, we wouldn’t also feel the comfort. Perhaps this explains why “Amazing Grace,” surely one of the best-known songs in the English-speaking world, is so uplifting. I find it has an uncannily graceful way of blending a verbal message of hope with the living sensation of it. I can’t hear that song without feeling some stir of longing or resolve."

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/06/26/why-obamas-singing-of-amazing-grace-is-so-powerful/

     I like what Sarah Kaufman says here and I agree with her-one of the President's' greatest virtues is his resolve:

     "Resolve, in fact, is what Obama so expertly tapped into, in the most powerful part of his eulogy. I don’t mean his singing, which was quite lovely, or his voicing of a hope that we may all be worthy of God’s grace. The capstone was the way he expressed his final wish: a wish for God’s grace on the UnitedStates of America–pausing to place emphasis on “united.”

    "That word had a force to make you shiver, because of the way Obama had led up to it. One man’s generosity, one community’s sacrifice and forgiveness, one overarching power urging us to “find our best selves” — and now one nation, united in all of those: generosity, sacrifice, love."

     "For that is indeed the most amazing grace, the kind that can bring us together in the shared experience of our own humanity. Even — and especially — when being human hurts."

      I think that's one of the great things about Obama's presidency. While he's been criticized by people on both the Left and Right for his handling of race, he's always been first and foremost about America as a united country-truly the United States of America. Not as the Right claims just about Black America. 

    Speaking for myself, I've never seen him as just 'the Black President of the United States'-the way only conservatives still continue to see him: most Americans have seen him as I have. 

   His Blackness gives his presidency a unique history which says something important about where we are and that we have come far but it's never been the defining thing about him.

   Actually, interesting enough I can kind of relate to him racially speaking as though in America we have the Jim Crow legacy where a drop of African blood defiles you-so that you could be say 99% white but that 1% of black blood makes you that N-word the President used for effect the other day he is actually like me of a mixed race background. 

  He was born to a black father and a white mother for me it was the reverse-black mother, white father. 

  Still, a further thing the President and I share is that while we are both half black, neither of us are African American. Obama's father of course was Kenyan. My mother was born in Jamaica-her family would make the then quite natural move to Britain when she was 17. 

  In her 20s she'd meet my Dad. 

  So I can identify with Obama. When I was in school I never felt totally black any more than I felt totally white either. In all honesty in high school some of the black kids seemed to want me to submit to a loyalty test to prove I was really black.  I always felt kind of apart from racial identities. 

  I have a high opinion of the African American heritage but it is not mine.  Obama has been criticized by some on very militant African American blogs like the Black Agenda Report simply for being half White and not African American. One particularly unkind post expressed disgust for Obama talking about his Irish heritage-as if even talking about being half white is a betrayal of his blackness.I feel like I can kind of identify with this as I never quite fit in regarding racial identities as well.

   But it's not primarily ethnicity that I feel most in common with Obama. What I like about him is what drives his detractors crazy about him. His deliberateness. The way he doesn't get categorical about things. What is disparaged as his lawyerly manner. I mean this is welcome after years of Bush who made everything a simplistic battle of civilizations, a battle of good vs. .evil, of dark vs. light. I read it as him being a very thoughtful man. 

  So I do feel that Obama is right here: this sick, young man full of hate will end up unsuccessful in starting a race war. He is only bringing the country together.