Michael Wolraich's picture

    InBloguration: Seeking the Silver Section

    I left my friend Jake's apartment on Capitol Hill at 8:45am, clutching my hard-won "silver section" inauguration ticket. Hat, gloves, long underwear, wool socks, sunglasses--perfectly equipped for five hours of 32 degrees, mostly sunny. We wound our way around the Capitol, exchanging anti-Bush witticisms with the passerby. At first, there were big, friendly signs: "Silver section -->." The signs happily directed us where we already knew we were supposed to go.

    That was before we got to the road blocks. The road blocks kept pushing us south. We didn't really want to go south, south wasn't were we were supposed to be, but it was south or back the way we came. The helpful signs were nowhere to be found now that we actually needed their services. So south we went. But first we had to wait for a ten-minute motorcade of horse trailers to pass so we could cross the street. The people driving the trucks waved at us, but we just wanted them to get out of our way. The horses passed.

    We went south and also a little west. But we couldn't get too far west because there was a fence and a road and a bunch of people standing in line to go into a tunnel. We didn't want to go into the tunnel. We wanted to go west. Some other people wanted to go west too. They climbed over the fence and crossed through the line. Then we did too.

    A woman stopped me to ask directions to the silver section. I said that I didn't know. When I turned around, my friend Jake was gone. I wandered about for 10 minutes until I found him.

    We passed another very long line. The people said that this line was for the blue section. We kept going. We heard someone yelling to tell people where to go for the silver section. We did what he said. There were more silver section yellers. We did what they said too. Then we found a throng of people--the silver section people.

    The silver section people were walking slowly towards a big gate that said "SILVER SECTION." We were probably supposed to go to the back of the walkers, but we just fell in with them. But the people stopped before they reached the gate. We waited. At 10am, someone remarked that Bush only had two more hours as President. We laughed. But a half hour later, we still weren't moving. We started to become concerned. There were rumors that they had overbooked the silver section by 50,000 people. Some people gave up and left.

    Jake and I decided to walk along up to the front to investigate. When we got there, the security people suddenly let everyone go, so we went. Joyously, we surged across Independence Avenue. And stopped. Jake wanted to wait were we were since we could at least see the capital building, sort of. I insisted on moving forward. The mass of people inched along. Jake and I inched along. It was 10:30. We inched. It was 10:45. We inched. It was 11:00. We inched.

    And then we surged again. Suddenly, inexplicably, they opened the barriers. There was nothing between us and the silver section but some tape. We dutifully follow the tape. We found the security entrance. They frisked us and ignored the silver section tickets that we proudly waved. We had arrived in the silver section.

    There wasn't much to see in the silver section. A field with a lot of people crammed in to watch a jumbotron. We couldn't see the jumbotron very well because of the big tree in the way. Some kids were sitting in the tree. I wanted to climb a tree too. Jake said no.

    Since we couldn't see, we wandered to the back of the silver section. Behind us were all the millions of non-silver-section people who had camped out to reserve their non-silver-section spots. At the back of the silver section, it was possible to cross over to the far side of the field. We crossed. It was much less crowded over there. We walked to the front. Then we realized that we could cross the street into a whole other part of the silver section that was closer. We crossed. Again we made our way to the front. Now we were standing just behind the reflecting pool. We could easily see the Capitol, though the people below it were specks.

    The setting was splendid. Millions of people waved flags splendidly behind us. Thousands lined Capitol Hill splendldly before us. The sun shined splendidly. The introducer indroduced people splendidly. The people cheered splendidly. Barack Obama became the President splendidly.

    I have to go meet Orlando and AM and California Paige and Zaftig Redhead for dinner. I will write more and attach pictures later. But I just want to note that as I was leaving the inauguration, George Bush's helicopter flew overhead. I reached up and gave the former President the most satifying finger that I have ever given.

    Comments

    Congratulations on actually making it to your designated section; I gather a lot of folks didn't. Via the miracle of television, I was there with you in spirit -- although inside and toasty warm.

    I started the day watching CNN's coverage, but had to switch networks after Wolf Blitzer became more unbearably inane than usual: "We can only imagine what Barack Obama and his family must be thinking." True enough, Wolfie, but unless you actually have some insight into what their thoughts are, just SHUT UP!

    The final straw was Wolfie (or one of his clones), one time too many, asking an African-American guest whether he/she ever imagined he/she would live to see this day. The first couple of times I heard this asked, it came across as empathetic. But with rote repetition, it got really patronizing. I'm not black, but I was offended.

    Yes, Obama's black; he has been for at least the five years most of us have known him. But he's not JUST black. Yes, his inauguration is an American milestone, and a source of pride and joy for African-Americans. But not just for them. Not even just for Americans. A new poll asked Canadians if Obama's election gave them hope for the future. In Quebec, 92 per cent answered yes. Why doesn't Blitzer ask me if I thought I'd live to see this day?

    Sorry for the rant; Blitzer just drives me nuts. Didn't mean to put a dent in the celebration. It was nice to see that helicopter's wheels leave the ground, wasn't it? 


    Just spotted this on The Hill blog, Genghis. Your gesture did not go unnoticed -- or at least unimitated:

    Later, when President Bush left the Capitol grounds in a helicopter, he received some cheers from a crowd of onlookers.

    But at least one man was seen giving the chopper what Bush used to call the "one-finger salute."


    How did you get the ticket? Part of the payment for Republican fund-raiser website?


    Ha. They disappeared on me. So much for my angst. I have a friend who's going to work for Obama.


    Last night, Jon Stewart picked up on the same point I did, running a montage of white reporters asking black participants if they ever thought they'd live to see the day. He made clear that all the networks did it, not just CNN.

    Why that ubiquitous, annoying, patronizing question? I think this might be the subtext: "Wow, I sure never thought I'd live to see a black man come out on top. Please don't kill me!"

     


    ill have to check out the daily show take, but i gotta tell you, i don't think the question is that annoying or patronizing (ubiquitous, i'll grant you, but only because it's obvious and relevant). Asking the question of other black people is not belittling the accomplishment of Obama or questioning the intelligence of the race - it's recognizing that this country was borne out of and remained until very recently steeped in social and institutional racism. Obama himself said it - his father sixty years ago probably wouldnt have been served at a local restaurant and now his son was becoming the most powerful person in the world. Come on, that's friggin cool. I certainly thought there was no way I was going to see that happen.

    think you were too easily annoyed on this one!


    It is indeed friggin' cool, Deadman. It's awesome. But watch the Daily Show clip, and maybe you'll see what's bugging me. Faced with a black interviewee, that is THE question that gets asked. If I'm Colin Powell (or even Jesse Jackson) getting asked that the third or fourth time, I'm thinking, "Hey, I've actually got some ideas about foreign and domestic policy; I don't just have happy feet 'cause some brother's in the White House!"

    Stereotyping is bad even if it's all innocent and well-meaning; it reflects a profound intellectual laziness on the part of the media. Now that the inauguration is over, can everyone please stop calling Obama "the first African American president?" Like being president isn't already a unique enough status! Maybe the reference would be appropriate if an issue arises over civil rights, voting rights or affirmative action. Or immigration, because of his Kenyan father.

    But for the rest, get over it! George Bush was never referred to as the 43rd white president, nor was Washington called the first. You now have one black president, and you'll hopefully have others in the future. Women, Hispanics, Jews -- the whole nine yards. America is growing up. Time to focus on the crucial fact: you've got an intelligent, thoughtful, skilled and compassionate leader at the moment you (and the world) needed him -- that's what's friggin' cool!


    You might be right about the repitition of asking that same question to well-known dignitaries like Powell and Jackson -- but from the looks I saw on probably hundreds of thousands of faces on Tuesday, the fact thatThis woman had traveled from Canada. She remembered listening to Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech and came to DC to "see the dream realized." this intelligent, thoughtful, skilled and compaassionate leader is African American is hugely significant.

    A few miles walk from the capitol, I fell into step with a woman with a Jamaican-sounding accent who said she'd come from Canada for the occasion, and she told me about how she remembered listening to Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and to her, this day was a realization of that dream.

    And yes, I agree this is simply the beginning.  Our nation was forced by dwindling international credibility and a domestic crisis to turn to the best person for the job and put aside race-based prejudice.  I'm inspired to think that, as a people, we're that much closer to setting aside other long-held prejudices, and that it won't be long before it is commonplace to see a woman, an asian, an openly gay man or lesbian, a smoker, a non-Christian, or a two-headed and three-armed alien in a position of high leadership in the US.  Or even someone who embodies all these things.


    OK, I'll stop beating this horse now. But fair warning: If, four years from now, I see Wolf Blitzer asking an African-American, "So, did you ever imagine you'd live to see this happening AGAIN in your lifetime?" I'm going to throw a shoe through my prized flat-screen TV.


    And that would be an entirely appropriate reaction! :-)


    I think a more appropriate question would have been, "What does this moment mean to you?" I agree that "Did you ever think you'd see this day?" is a bit patronizing, but in defense of the media, they are, as a group, far too stupid to realize it.

    Also in defense of the media: We keep watching.


    Thanks for writing. I, too, had silver tickets and your blog is almost an exact narrative of my experience.


    Latest Comments