the times, they are a changin'

The other day I watched the post-reaction to the Obama address to Congress. I couldn’t see the actual address because I was working. What I saw as Obama left was interesting to say the least.

And I’m not necessarily talking about Rep. Kucinich among others, sitting for hours so they could get a front row seat to shake President Obama’s hand as he left the Capitol (this was reported on Anderson Cooper last night). What I am talking about is the groups of giddy teenagers waiting patiently for Obama to pass by so they could shake his hand, get an autograph, and generally act like they just met Justin Timberlake after he stepped off the Grammy stage. It was a remarkable sight contrasted against the sea of gray hair that preceded them. And it occurred to me, as it has on more than one occasion: Congress is being run by a bunch of old fogies. In this sense, at least, Obama is a much-welcomed change.

I loved Bobby Jindal’s response, by the way. Despite sounding like he was telling a group of 3rd graders the day’s lesson plan (my gosh does he really gesticulate that much when he talks to people, it was truly alarming—I could barely concentrate on his words), he trotted out the republican lines of America is great, tax less, spend less, government isn’t the solution, the people are…etc. And generally I agree with the idea that taxing less and spending less is a good idea. For the most part I also agree that government creates a bunch of wasteful programs.

But if it’s such a simple fundamental premise, then what the hell happened over the past decade? Things aren’t looking so rosy anymore. But I’m sure that’s Clinton’s fault. Or maybe Carter’s.

Anyway, I didn’t really want to talk about politics, I wanted to talk about the observation that America is more and more looking (and probably behaving) different than when I grew up. I suppose everyone says that.

There was an interesting cover story on the Atlantic Monthly in the January issue about the “end of White America”. The gist is basically that with all the mixing and immigration going on, white is becoming less the majority every year, leading to (together with a variety of factors) a "post-racial" USA.

With this in mind I sat in a Starbucks last night and watched as a myriad of people drifted in, and order their personalized complex drinks (I once heard someone order a “grande chai non-fat sugar-less tea latte”-if that’s not annoying, nothing is), and in strolls 3 kids. One white, one black, and one latino. All young teens, carrying skateboards. They were soon joined by another black teen, and it turned out that he had a middle-eastern-sounding name.

I’m not making this up, they were not sent into starbucks by an advertising agency to the best of my knowledge. And I watched. I thought back to Obama’s address, and the speeches he gave on his campaign and the stark difference between his and McCain’s candidacy. Perhaps it’s a stark contrast between the Dems and the Repubs (but the Repubs have now anointed Steele and Jindal as rising stars—I can only hope because they are duly qualified and not to keep up with the “hipness” of being ethnically diverse. White guilt is a powerful emotion, you know).

Nonetheless, it struck me as I was looking at what I would have called “skate rats” in my day, but they looked like an afterschool special. White hanging with the black, hanging with the latino, hanging with the arab. And it was completely natural.

From left to right, Hakeem, 15, Enrique,14, and Hassan, 14.

I thought, “how cool”, and I took a picture. But I took a picture when the white kid got up to get his drink, because I thought that made more sense to me at the moment. These 14 and 15 year olds will be running the show in 10 years, and they’ll be running it with a much different perspective than all those old white men in congress have been over the past 200 years.

As Dylan once said, “the times, they are a changin’”.