The unlikely making of an American president: Out of the groins of Africa

God surely has a sense of humour – a good one, a healthy one. As Kenya was melting down, confused about how to manage the outcome of elections, one of its sons was rising on an unlikely stage, competing with white people for the highest office of presidency of the ‘leader of the free world’ – USA. Obama appears to be on the right side of history and with an awesome ‘audacity of hope’, would become the 1st black President of the USA. Unless.....

In America, the tiniest drop of black blood renders a person black. Senseless, but that’s just the way it is. Enters racism – that irrational, ugly, nasty, sinking, stinky bigotry with an accompanying monstrous hydra-head. If America’s history is any predictor, Obama’s bid to the White House could fall prey to racist attack dogs or through sheer hesitancy motivated by racism, cast a wrench in his currently unstoppable path to the presidency. But like him, we remain clothed in hope and float on the wings of prayers to witness the making of history.

Not surprisingly, there is a resurgence of hate groups. White supremacists are “as mad as hell” over the prospect of a black-man becoming president. Some are making strange threats on the Internet with Obama’s successes awakening their otherwise dormant racist prejudices. And God is laughing, fully tickled. And Obama is looking as cool and collected as ever. It is as if the universe is conspiring to challenge America to show maturity and bring an end to the gloomy inhuman history of slavery and racism and to finally flip the page to a brighter future befitting this new century.

When Martin Luther King Jr made his “I have a dream” speech, the Negro he spoke of were the ‘sons of former slaves,’ quintessential African Americans with a concoction of hard-to-identify blood flowing through their veins – the product of years of brutal multiple crossings between the original and descendants of white slave masters, native Americans and African slaves of hard-to-know tribal origins.

Obama is directly from African groins. Once upon a time, a Kenyan male student in the 1960s America, Barack Obama Sr, went out to sow his naughty wild oats and moved on, abandoning little Obama to be raised white by his maternal grand parents. No statistics exist on the number of wild oats that have been sown by African men who have travelled the world and who have locked in the bosoms of women of all races for solace, albeit brief, and have left African droppings in all corners of the world.

They are in China, Ireland, Mexico, Australia and Canada. You name it: wherever our men have been, they have left footprints, changing the faces, features and colour shades of the races as God made them. Some of these children are claimed, some brought home, some never acknowledged, some conveniently forgotten about and left to the universe. I have met a few of such racial/nationality combinations during my life’s journey. Cameroonian-lipped Chinese-eyed, Nigerian-Irish, Ghanaian-Polish and over-sized fleshy Ashanti noses planted firmly but permanently on Norwegian faces – with a tan.

Of course, our women have not been left out of racial crossings. Even right on our shores, bi-racial kids have popped out of strictly-Ghanaian wombs. Chief among obvious remnants of biracial sexual escapades is a certain Flt Lft Jerry John Rawlings who, with audacity, ruled Ghana for 19½ years, the chunk of our political independence from colonial Britain. And Ghana lost her innocence in his now cushy bosom.

God has a sense of humour. Consider Obama’s undoubtedly Muslim-sounding names as USA President in this era of American paranoia with the T word – Terrorism! He is not a John like you know who in Ghana – but a Barack like Israeli politician, Ehud Barak. And Obama has an eerie resemblance with a certain Osama, who might still be hiding in the caves of Afghanistan or Pakistan, or might have returned to ashes via American bold and relentless bombings – un-identified, unclaimed, un-mourned. Then as if for good effect, his middle name is Hussein. Remember Sadam Hussein? The complete package of Obama’s name is another reason to place face to the ground and give obeisance to God for his unmatched sense of humour.

In the country that bears the deep scars of its racial past like an ugly badge of honour, Obama as USA President is a sweet story that will be told for years to come. It’s an epoch-making history that is being written every day as he boldly inches his way closer and closer to the White House. If you’ve ever been looked down on because of the colour of your skin (I have) and been called a nigger to your face (I have), then Obama’s journey feels like sweet revenge.

Obama has definitely tickled my racial pride. He is fresh, exciting, and a visionary not just by American standards but by international standards and expectations. How I itch for someone to rise up to inspire my motherland/fatherland with a fraction of this magnitude of hope.

I feel sorry for Obama though. He carries an enormous hydra-headed multi-coloured weight on his shoulders. On the surface, he is just a skinny bi-racial man who is running for president like many have run before him. But in his case, he carries burdens of expectations of messianic proportions.

Continental Africa and his half-homeland Kenya look up to him, cheering him on as the embodiment of this century as an African century. Black America holds him up as a test of how far they have come realizing the Martin Luther King ‘dream.’ White Americans with no racist bones, especially the youth, see a star shine. The Muslim world is excited, most probably because of his Middle Eastern sounding names. Even Chinese, Japanese, Thais, Indians and people in the most unlikely corners of the world are in high expectancy about this easily pronounceable name – Obama. So this former inner-city Chicago community organizer represents a “Beacon light of hope” for many as he takes a major leap of faith to challenge the status quo of white privilege. This is profound.

As I cast my mind back to homeland Ghana, I wonder – when can we begin to feel an Obama-like excitement and high expectation about any of our presidential candidates in this election year? Could it be that the flag-bearers of our leading political parties are on the wrong side of history? Contrary to what was said about President Nkrumah as having come ages before his time, the guys who have presented themselves for the presidency of Ghana might belong to an age that does not gel well with our times. I don’t feel and/or hear transformative messages from them. Or, is it just me?

But is there still balm in Gilead? Yes, there’s plenty of balm in Gilead. So go ahead, like Helen of Troy in Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey, quaff some nepenthe, the ancient drug that induces forgetfulness, so you too can forget your cares about the future of Ghana while our beloved country floats on the wings of our prayers. Someday, our star will come and it will shine like no other. And Ghana will rise. And God will laugh – kwa kwa kwa – echoing throughout the universe.

dorisdartey@yahoo.com