Barely three years after the Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut, and countless school shootings later, Mr. Obama feels the wounds our country has endured in an all too raw and powerful manner. He's a sensitive and emotive man, crying at least 13 times in public over the course of his administration, three of which were related to school shootings. However, since his press conference last Tuesday where he announced a series of measures that will empower the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to enact gun control reforms, the right wing media has lambasted and parodied his tears, using distracting rhetoric to try to downplay the huge gain the executive order represents for gun control in America. Conservatives either believe Mr. Obama to have finally outright admitted weakness in front of the nation, or to be sociopathic and merely feigning compassion for the dead.
Frankly, this kind of thinking is absurd at best, and without any sort of empathy at worst. In a culture where men and boys are taught to restrain any sort of emotional display, Mr. Obama's genuine concern for the issues facing his nation are patriotic and welcome. While I laud his attempts to curb the runaway gun culture of the United States, I believe that his representation as a man willing to show his passion in front of his family and colleagues is one of the most important aspects of his presidency. His status as an emotionally sensitive African American man is a stark contrast to the toxic masculinity and macho posturing that is pervasive through much of GOP rhetoric and gun culture. But why focus on our president's tears at all, from a leftist standpoint, rather than the actual policy measures he'll be forcing through?
American political discourse has long been fraught with anti-intellectualism, blatant pandering to moneyed interests, and a dogged commitment to perpetuating a myth of nationalist exceptionalism. To see my president take in seven years of injustice, ignorance, and conspiratorial corporatism, and truly mourn over what he has seen our country devolve into since his election in 2008. Might I remind you, dear readers, this is the same man who ran on the slogan, "Yes We Can," that most marketable of progressive phrases that encapsulated the hope and change his optimistic outlook demanded. Where is that hope? Perhaps, we finally see the true burden of leading the United States of America.
Maybe now we see, in Mr. Obama's tears, one of the most pertinent reasons to organize for revolution and not reform -- progressive reform only ever leads to disillusionment and disappointment. Such politicians are often thwarted at the hand of reactionaries and fascists throughout history, no matter their good intentions, and any reform they accomplish fails to have a long-term effect. But this administration, which has been more willing to use raw pathos in pushing its policies than most presidencies, does represent one advancement for leftists: we can teach young men to allow themselves to cry, to buck the trend of our culture which demands that we show no weakness in the public sphere.
In sum, for a man to cry, most of all a man leading in the White House, may be a revolutionary act in and of itself. We should follow suit.
