As the days wind down to the end of the Obama Era, I'm somewhat fixated on the Obama Biden bromance (and the Joe and Barack memes it has generated). I'm warming up to a good cry about Michelle but that's a
whole other story. My current focus is on the bromance for the ages between the
President and the Veep. I know I'm not alone in feeling something, because the
meme-ification game has been strong. These two make it easy. (If you don't
believe me, here are some really good ones for your enjoyment.) The question I keep asking
myself is, what is it about the love these two share that gives us a warm fuzzy
feelin'?
My very unscientific poll of a few good friends generated these results:
1. The Obama Biden bromance makes us feel good because it shows us that love can thrive anywhere, even in an arranged political marriage.
This may have begun as the usual
marriage of political convenience, but it didn't remain that. All presidential/Vice
Presidential relationships begin as arranged marriages do: with an assessment
of what each party brings to the union but clearly the participants to this
particular arranged marriage chose to do the work necessary to move from that
starting point to a place of respect and love that inspired many.
2. The Obama Biden bromance makes us feel good because it shows us what is possible when we judge each
other by the content of our characters
These two demonstrate for us that old
rivalries can be set aside. In spite of having begun as BHO's rival, Joe Biden
has had Barack Obama's back in a way that many of us have rarely seen before,
and perhaps longed to see, as a sign of what was possible in politics and in
race relations in America.
Say what you will about how far we
think we've come as a nation, we ain't come that far. This didn't have to work,
but it did because of the two people involved. Joe is Scrappy Joe from Scranton
and Barack is No Drama Obama and between them, there is a level of emotional
intelligence that is extraordinary.
For many of us, the sight of an older
White man, willingly taking second place to a Black man was ..... is there even
a word for that? Oh yeah, there is! It’s
unpresidented. J This is America after all,
where one party made hay of the president's 'exotic' background, his funny
name, his African antecedents, his childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii, so
anything was possible. This outcome was not a given but boy are we glad that it's
the one we got!
This relationship made us feel hope. It showed us change. Oh sure, it probably
made some people's stomachs churn (as evidence by the deplorables who
subsequently came out of the woodwork), but for those of us leaning toward our
better angels? For those of us looking to see post-racial America finally take
flight, ah this image was a balm to the soul.
3. This bromance makes us feel safe.
Quoting my
friend, it makes us feel safe "not in the ISIS can't happen here sense
[but rather] in the sense that the two radically different men at the top of
the country saw me [and] went to bat for me and defended what I am."
Amen.
These men, their
relationship and their work made some of us feel a new, and much longed for,
sense of safety and security; a sense of security that is now all but gone in
the advent of the Age of Trump. The protections for LGBTQI, DPA and DACA
reflect that safety; the end of DOMA and the beginning of Marriage Equality
reflect that safety.
Obama and Biden, SOTU 2016. Obama tasks Biden with
the US Cancer Moonshot Task Force[i]
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4. The Obiden bromance also chokes us up because
it is wholesome
Seeing these two men love each other so unabashedly and
unreservedly is, as another friend said, "a distraction from all that's
wrong with the world" and forces us to focus on the wonderful thing that
is friendship.
In Barack and Joe we see the beauty of filial bonds, family and
extended family; all that really great stuff that we just don't see enough of
in this reality-TV-the-more-loud-crass-and-vulgar-the-better world.
And finally,
5. The Obiden bromance makes us feel inspired and
hopeful
Quoting still another friend, "[i]t proves that friendship is
stronger than any differences of opinion inherent in a working relationship. It
shows the genuine nature of a true friendship. And it shows that humanity has
the ability to not see skin color [sic] but rather [see] the common values and
traits on which a sound relationship can be built."
Can I geddanother "Amen"?
**************
Men don't often show affection for
other men. Certainly, Black men are not so open in their affection for other
men. The way in which manhood seems to be defined limits men's
willingness and ability to be openly affectionate with men they love.
Everybody's afraid of being thought to be gay.
Case in point, earlier this year, my father passed away. Several months after he died, a much younger man called his phone to check in on him. When I told him, very reluctantly, that my father had passed away, I could hear and feel the impact of those words. I felt the whoosh of air leaving his body. And then there was the silence....a loud pain full silence. There may have been tears. He whispered, "I loved that man." And then he said it again. "I really loved that man."
I wondered whether he had
ever told him. Probably not. It's not the way of men. But on Friday, when Obama hung that Medal of Freedom (with distinction) around
Biden's neck and Biden had to speak, I heard "I love you, man" in
every pause and I saw it in every tear he shed.
Ladies and gentlemen. 44 and 47: A Bromance for the Ages.
[i]
Cancer Moonshot Task Force with which Veep Biden was
tasked in January 2016. Please check it out.
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