When I heard it, I winced a bit.
“Good to see you, John,” Barack Obama said.
The microphones barely picked it up as the two candidates shook hands at the start of tonight’s debate.
Oooh, I thought. That was a bit familiar. Maybe a bit disrespectful? Not “Senator McCain”? Doesn’t Barack Obama want to be called “Senator Obama,” after all?
Then, as the debate continued, and Obama continued to refer to his opponent by his first name — John, John, John — I realized this was not a sign of offhand arrogance on the part of Obama. It was strategy. That it alarmed me at all was a sign of why he needed to do it.
Our society expects that certain folks are entitled to formality and respect. Formality is something that we give our superiors and our elders. But it has also been something that — historically, at the very least — white Americans have felt entitled to from those Americans who are not.
Barack Obama is, in that sense, an upstart. He jumped the line in so many ways. He jumped the line as a Democrat. He jumped the line as a Senator. But primarily, he jumped the line as a nonwhite male. And there he is, onstage, opposite Senator John McCain, the old lion of the Senate, appearing as an equal.
Remember Michael Richards’ rant? Remember his reaction to Black hecklers who had the temerity to interrupt his funny? Did he assail them for their behavior? No, he attacked them for who they were. “Back in the day,” he said (I paraphrase), “If you had spoken up, you would’ve been upside down with a fork up your ass.” Or something like that.
Richards was saying: You don’t get to do that to me, because of who I am and who you are. That’s the Order of things. You are upsetting the Order.
That’s what Barack Obama is doing. That’s what he represents. That why — even though he supports many of the same lame establishment politics of the Clintons — his impact as a politician is so fundamentally different. He upsets the Order.
And so, Barack Obama says, “John.”
He says: I get to be on this stage with you. I am here. And you don’t get respect for who you are anymore. You get respect for what you do.
One thing, at least, we can love about the 21st Century.