Obama's words remain true.
It is January 19, 2017. It is the last day of Barack Hussein Obama’s presidency. I have been sitting with my fingers hovering over my keyboard for 20 minutes waiting for the words to come.
There are only three words that keep coming: Yes, we can.
I want to rally you. I want to reassure you. I want to write the clarion call that will break forth from the panicked chatter all around us and somehow be the one to craft the message that we carry boldly into the next phase of the American Experiment.
But Barack Hussein Obama already gave us that message. He said to us, all those years ago, “Yes, we can.” And we looked into his good, honest face and we echoed, “Yes, we can.”
Yes. We can.
“Yes, we can” are the words that make the first chapter of American exceptionalism. We are a nation of adventurers, explorers, experimenters, iconoclasts, revolutionaries, artists, believers, philosophers, activists, and visionaries. Every one of us is the inheritor of the spirit of “Yes, we can.”
Yes, we can.
But it will be hard.
Ask any parent awake in the wee hours worrying about a sick baby. Ask any service member keeping watch in unspeakable conditions. Ask any teacher striving to reach that one student. Ask any member of the clergy struggling to comfort a broken soul. It's not easy. But, yes, we can.
It will be hard. That is the second chapter of American exceptionalism: the realization that it never comes easy. That’s what they never print on the campaign posters. That’s not the phrase that rings out in lofty speeches. That’s not the ideal that we can wrap neatly in a flag to bear us forward into the future.
It’s not inspiring. It’s just true.
Ask any parent awake in the wee hours worrying about a sick child. Ask any service member keeping watch in unspeakable conditions. Ask any teacher striving to reach that one student. Ask any member of the clergy struggling to comfort a broken soul. Ask any activist rallying others in a time of fear.
Ask any writer with her fingers hovering over her keyboard, wishing for words that will make tomorrow seem less bleak.
It will be hard. Yes, we can, but it will be hard.
America has never been something that was handed over without a fight. Indigenous people are still fighting to be seen as Americans. The descendants of enslaved people are still fighting to be seen as free. Women are still fighting to be seen as equal. Lesbian, gay, bi and trans people are still fighting to be seen as worthy of love. Immigrants are still fighting to be welcomed. It is hard. It was always hard.
The next four years will be replete with people in power trying to tell us that we can’t. Everything they are depends on us believing them when they say we can’t have our rights, our health, our safety, our privacy, and our families. But the answer is — as it always was — “Yes, we can.”
We, all of us, are Americans and we can be Americans however we choose to be. They do not define America. We do.
So let us stand together, even though we know it will be hard. Let us look to one another and say the words we know are true: Yes. We can.
