Bees, Flowers, Gardens, Playgrounds, Open Spaces and Relief: How the Grounds of the Obama Presidential Center are a Study in Contrast with the Miserly Cruelty of Trumpism
Over
There were so many reminders everywhere that, as Martin Luther King Jr. observed, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Oh, that long moral universe arc, though. It’s a doozy. In that arc, there is injustice, ignorance, cruelty, bigotry, brutality. In the bending toward justice, there are small gains steadfastly, tirelessly fought for and, when achieved, add up to real progress. On this path, we walk three steps forward, two steps back, or the reversal, and to me, that has never been more painfully clear than now.
Walking through the Center, I also couldn’t help but viscerally remember November 4, 2008 in Chicago, when Barack Obama was elected for his first term. We met friends downtown, and watched the election returns together in a condo building’s party room with fluttery nerves but also optimism. When it became clear there was no path to victory for John McCain, I finally felt like I could exhale. At home, I’d baked dozens of vegan mini-cupcakes and put bright little Obama victory toothpick flags in them, some for our gathering and more just to hand out. (I wish I had a photo!) I think it was when Pennsylvania was called for Obama that we cheered and danced and embraced and took a very joyous elevator ride down to celebrate with hundreds of thousands of equally ecstatic strangers spilling and spreading out in Grant Park, a ten-minute walk from my friend’s building made much longer by all the high-fives, hugs and cupcakes that were shared along the way with our fellow celebrants. It just so happened that the future president would be accepting his win at Grant Park. We were smack dab in the center of the world that night and it felt magical beyond description.
The first Black president. The first president from Chicago. A man who got his start in community organizing, as VP candidate Sarah Palin liked to spit out as if it were an insult. After eight years of George W. Bush, it felt so overwhelmingly like sheer relief, I don’t know what percentage was joy. We could celebrate. We could have hope. We could work with this administration toward positive change.
It meant something.
I just want to say two things before I get into the heart of what I really wanted to write about because I can already feel people itching to “yeah, but” me about Mr. Obama’s leadership and legacy. If you’re going to comment, please read this first because it matters that much. I fan-girl to no one. I genuflect to no one. (Well, okay, there’s a small club including Kate Bush and a few others but...) I try to be clear-eyed about the big picture. I certainly do not worship at the altar of the Democratic Party. I am also old enough that my idealism is tempered by the fact that the most we can expect for progress is that it is incremental at best. At this point, I am fine with flawed but better, though. We can work with better.
I also wanted to note that as the first Black president, there were obstacles Obama faced in office and in public perception that those of us who aren’t of color would have a hard time even imagining. If he were to come off as anything but breezy and friendly, he was a threatening thug to these Fox News-addled minds. If he was diplomatic and eloquent, that meant he was an elite snob who had doors opened to him through Affirmative Action. If he was confident and he knew his worth, he was seen as arrogant. If he spoke passionately about matters that were important to him, he was called divisive. He could not win. Criticize him, sure, that is your right and prerogative in a democracy. We should never be complacent, but please acknowledge the impediments that Obama singularly faced in that office, not the least of which was having a proudly obstructionist Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, dedicated to blocking him every step of the way so that very little actual progress could actually trickle out.
This is not to make excuses. This is to say there are real reasons why a president, especially one from a minority plagued with bigoted baggage that was not of his own doing, might not be able to make sweeping changes single-handedly in a political landscape that is less about legislation and more about casualties. It is a position of deep compromise to even be able to get your foot in the door. This does not mean, though, that I wasn’t filled with a bittersweet reminder of progress we’d made that has since been reversed and what could have been possible as I walked my way through the Center.
I had to get that out of the way for…reasons…but what I really want to write about is the contrast I noticed. Not the contrast between what was included in the Center as compared to what we can imagine in an equivalent future Trump location but the contrast of spirit. There was art in and around the space, colorful, abstract tapestries and sculptures, not grotesque tributes to one unhinged man’s high opinion of himself. The flow made good chronological and evolving sense, not just appeasing the preferences of one guy who doesn’t care about anyone else’s experience.
As you may already know, the grounds around the Obama Presidential Center are just as meaningful as the displays, art and artifacts inside it. Even without a ticket to the Center, a day on the grounds is worth your time. There’s a wetland walk, a flower garden, a fruit and vegetable garden, a great lawn with hills and picnic tables, an ADA-accessible playground, a beautiful new Chicago public library branch and a regulation basketball facility that is free to use. You can say a lot about Barack and Michelle Obama, but one thing that seems quite a point of pride is the intentionality they bring to their projects and work together. These public spaces are named in homage to heroes like John Lewis and Eleanor Roosevelt, not just slapping the Obama name on everything as another branding opportunity, as the current White House occupant does. The overarching sense I got as a visitor is one of being warmly received and included.
Instead of fences blocking things off, there were people moving through the environment at their own pace. Instead of treating a temporary home as something they own and can destroy at will, there is a generous gift for the neighborhood and all visitors to enjoy. Instead of ripping out a historic garden, there is the planting of gardens. Instead of a UFC cage match on the lawn, there are flowers and picnic tables. Instead of a monument to oneself, there is the spirit of inclusion and community.
What I felt most as we walked the grounds was just the feeling of peace and relief that pervaded. The ugly, persistent suspiciousness and paranoia of the Trump administration was nowhere to be found. There were peppers and tomatoes on the vine in the garden but no one was eyeballing visitors like we were all potential thieves. There were actual seating areas, not what is referred to as hostile architecture, designed to discourage extended comfortable public use and keep out the “undesirables”. I am sure there were security cameras around, but there was no sense of the kind of Big Brother surveillance that the Trump regime proudly flaunts. At the little water pumps in the playground, no one was trying to charge the children a dollar a turn.
In contrast, we have…
Fences blocking off the Reflecting Pool. Image credit: Raul Candia/7News
Proposed permanent fencing around Lafayette Square, a historic park for protesting, Washington, DC. Image credit: NBC News
Demolition of the White House East Wing and East Corridor. Image credit: Eric Lee/Getty Images
Former White House Rose Garden. Image credit: Saul Loeb AFP via Getty Images
UFC “The Claw.” Credit: AP News
It shouldn’t be shocking to enjoy a public space that emphasizes the free, simple joys of life. It shouldn’t be shocking to notice the absence of meanness, of possessiveness, or guardedness. It shouldn’t be shocking to see generosity and trust. When it is observable, though, that should be a wake up to us all. The march toward acquisition – of publicly enjoyed; free spaces; of our privacy; of our birthright to move through the world without the creeping overreach of the oligarchs – and toward totalitarianism is a joyless, grey slog into isolation and despair.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though, because why not moved toward…
Beauty, instead?
Community?
Trust, humanity and generosity?
Why not bring out the best in each other instead of acting on a presumption of seeing the worst?
I know what side I’m on. I refuse to accept the Trump regime’s rhetoric that authoritarianism and greed is what we want because, no, I do not accept the life they propose. I know a better way and so do you.