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Barack Obama is the most eloquent promoter of pluralism in American history, and its most inspiring embodiment: child of a white mother from Kansas and a Black father from Kenya, raised in both Hawaii and Indonesia, an Ivy Leaguer and a south side of Chicago community organizer.
In his public narrative, the former president has long told the story of a nation that makes a virtue of expanding the circle of inclusion, extending the promise of freedom to ever more people, and engaging constructively with opponents.
At the core of his being is the conviction that everybody belongs, that each of us is given unshakable dignity by God, and that America is at its best when we respect each other’s identities, relate positively across our differences, and cooperate on concrete projects to serve the common good.
Last week’s Obama Democracy Forum in Chicago saw the former president return physically to the city that gave rise to his improbable stardom and spiritually to his foundational message of pluralism. Consistent with his longstanding conviction that “we are the ones we have been waiting for,” he did not dominate the stage himself but instead spotlighted leaders from the growing movement for pluralism.
Architects of the field such as Rachel Kleinfeld, Manu Meel, Layla Zaidane, and Mónica Guzmán spoke about how the respect-relate-cooperate pluralism ethos needs to be woven into everything from our political system to our personal relationships; our college campuses to our state legislatures. (I had the opportunity myself to give a mainstage address about why interfaith cooperation is an important part of pluralism.)
When Obama did speak, he played the professor-in-chief, delving into pluralism’s role throughout history, offering a socioeconomic analysis of our current polarization, and affirming key pillars of our nation’s political process — the centrality of the Constitution and the separation of powers.
But the part of Obama’s message that struck me most was about how the decency of our civic life is the surest springboard for making progressive social change.
The secret to his victory in the 2008 Iowa caucus, he said during a panel discussion, was that his campaign workers, many of them ethnic and racial minorities from urban areas, moved in with people in rural Iowa and made concrete contributions to their world, including coaching Little League and making grocery runs for the elderly. That cooperative spirit for building a common life together provided the trust to take the next step: making social change together by caucusing for Obama.
Persuasion, Not Scorn
In his speech, Obama contrasted this all-of-us-together pluralism to the callouts, cancellations, and oppressor/oppressed approach to social change that has dominated some parts of the nonprofit world over the past 10 years. His message was clear: We must persuade people, not scorn them.
“Purity tests are not a recipe for long-term success,” Obama said, and went on to criticize the framework of “fixed victims and fixed villains.”
He rejected the essentialism of connecting identity with ideology; the notion that “because you’re a male, you automatically have certain attitudes and … you’re a part of the patriarchy.”
And he refused the separation of social justice work on the one hand and bridge-building on the other, insisting instead that the former is the best way to achieve the latter: “Building bridges is not contrary to equality and social justice. In fact, it is our best tool for delivering lasting change.”
Indeed, Obama emphasized that social change is a game of “addition not subtraction.” The whole point is to attract people to your cause. “Being adversarial,” as Obama put it, is more likely to turn them off. “In order to build lasting majorities that support justice — not just for feeling good, not just for getting along, to deliver the goods — we have to be open to framing our issues, our causes, what we believe in in terms of ‘we’ and not just ‘us versus them.’”
That means looking “for allies in unlikely places.” And it means recognizing that “we don’t have to agree on everything to at least agree on some things.”
Obama is a Tocquevillian at heart. He believes the definition of a good society is a network of good institutions, and diverse democracies require institutions that bring people together. Otherwise, we are in danger of isolating into silos or, worse, outright conflict.
Role of Religion
While he is an advocate for progressive social change, Obama also has many traditionalist instincts. He mentioned religion a number of times as a positive force, including several paragraphs on how megachurches are models of effective institutions.
This approach of “I respect your identity and see you even when we disagree” is precisely how Obama was able to inspire people across races, regions, and party lines to win the White House twice.
His presidency was bookended by the idea of pluralism.
I was on the National Mall in January 2009 for Obama’s first Inaugural Address, when he said, “America’s patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.” We are a nation “shaped by every language and culture,” and, precisely because of the combination of our history of ugly conflicts and inspiring social movements, we might “play [a] role in ushering in a new era of peace.”
And I was there at McCormick Place on the near south side of Chicago on January 10, 2017, for Obama’s farewell address, when he said, “For Blacks and other minorities, it means tying our own struggles for justice to the challenges that a lot of people in this country face — the refugee, the immigrant, the rural poor, the transgender American, and also the middle-aged white man who from the outside may seem like he’s got all the advantages but who’s seen his world upended by economic, cultural, and technological change.” Democracy, he went on to say, “does require a basic sense of solidarity — the idea that for all our outward differences, we are all in this together; that we rise or fall as one.”
It felt like a continuation of the arc of history to be in the room a few days ago when Obama said that he was committed to making pluralism his most significant legacy.
We are undergoing a paradigm shift in the nonprofit world. The “us and them” approach has failed. Obama is shining the light on a different path — cooperation across differences to lift everyone up. The nonprofit sector has an opportunity not just to follow but to lead. We should take it.
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