Being in DC 1.18-1.21

Being in DC during this time, both MLK and Inauguration is pretty amazing. Like the Election itself, I think there will be some time tomorrow where I will just feel overwhelmed.

There is so much emphasis on his blackness but for me it is not his blackness as much as his upbringing, his community activism, his struggles with identity, and his struggle to fit in. These are the things that draw me closer and closer to his story. Of course I identify with many things in the black community - and the black community has suffered the most and the longest out of any of the colored communities -  but it is the sense that he has had to cobble together his own life, and community, from disparate and often far flung parts which really brings it together. It is a testament to his mother, that she was such an interesting person. You can tell when he talks about different things, or when I watch his choices, you can tell that each word that he speaks holds volumes of information behind it. A lifetime of nuaced observations inform him. He has spent a life trying to fit in, be in a group. He was lucky to grow up in Hawaii, where there is almost complete tolerance for people of all types. Perhaps it was on this small island where he was free to examine who exactly he wanted to identify with. Perhaps if he had gone to school in a big mainland city, he would have spent his whole childhood trying to decide between white or black, probably coming out oreo. (esp. with a white mom, shout out to Bryan.)

I get the same feeling about his cabinet, people all seem to think that he has set up his cabinet for failure, bringing all sorts of people together to work, who may but heads, but in the same way that he has had to cobble together his own life I think he expects his staff to work it out as well. I think most of these people will fall in line when they realize that they are expected to tough it out and perform.  That is, in a sense what forms the core of my personal connection to him. Observe, understand, synthesize, edit. This has been his whole life.