I feel all sorts of things about yesterday's inauguration. Mostly good things.
There's the palpable sense of history, of course, and the hope that this eminently likable man amounts to half of what is expected of him. Really, one foot standing on water will do. He can hop.
There's also an enormous sense of empathetic pride, as I know what his election symbolizes to my black friends and their community, to which I'll never belong but to which I've long been a friend, a doppelganger, and a bit of a prick. Their pride is not exactly my own, but I'm in imagination's neighborhood.
And then there are my white friends. My liberal white friends. My extraordinarily pleased-with-themselves liberal white friends. The friends who twice yesterday wished aloud that he'd talked more about his being black, lest anyone forget the true depths of their liberal whiteness. Every silver lining comes with a dark cloud, and folks, here they are.
With a bottle of lotion in one hand and a kleenex in the other, they spent their yesterday annoying the fuck out of me. Unconversant about either policy or history, they contributed to our conversations the following: "Did you see Barack's speech? Wasn't he wonderful? I don't understand what you mean, 'list of talking points.' Well, I thought it was wonderful. The best speech ever! What do you mean, 'Better angels of our nature?' Did he say that?'"
I wasn't there, but I'm pretty sure that the smattering of people in DC who whooped at every mention of race (WHOO! BLACK! WHOO!) were my white friends.