Personhood, Community, and the Ethics of the Obama Administration

One of the most important myths by which the United States of America understands itself is the myth of the “self-made” man or woman. As a moment in the evolution of an idea that emerged during the time of the Enlightenment—that personhood is constituted in the solipsism of the individual thinking self—America abides by the myth of self-making in part because America itself was constructed by white, male Enlightenment minds that understood the (white, male) “individual” as the primary unit of human life. Deployed politically and economically, the philosophical primacy of the individual enabled the construction of the mythological individual who pulls himself up by his own bootstraps and, allegedly without support from others, achieves his own prosperity and liberty.

In The Spirituality of African Peoples, Peter Paris argues that the millions of women and men forcibly removed from their African homeland and shipped across the Atlantic to what would become the U.S. brought with them a quite different understanding of what a human being is in relation to other human beings than that of their captors. “All African peoples agree that the tribal or ethnic community is the paramount social reality apart from which humanity cannot exist,” Paris writes. “Similarly, all agree that the community is a sacred phenomenon created by the supreme God, protected by the divinities, and governed by the ancestral spirits. The full participation in the community is a fundamental requirement of all humans. It comprises the nature of religious devotion” (51). Thus, Paris goes on to write, “Africans have no conception of person apart from the community” (111).

Paris’s purpose in his book is to demonstrate the ways in which this emphasis upon community as the fundamental unit of human life finds its source in traditional African spirituality and culture, and to illuminate the continuity between mainland African moral frameworks and those of Africans in the diaspora, primarily in America—and to show how such moral frameworks, grounded in the indispensability of community evidenced in the rich history of cultural practices of Africans in both Africa and the diaspora, are powerful means of communal self-actualization and survival under the institution of slavery and other forms of oppression.

If, as Paris suggests, the fundamental communal ethos of African spirituality lives on in the diaspora even today, where might we look for it? For my own part, as a white male, as much as I might counter, in my academic exercises, the legacy of Cartesianism, if I am honest with myself, I find it much easier to concern myself with myself alone. Community, relationship, and mutuality are painfully difficult. But even such a notion—that community is hard—presupposes that I can even be (ontologically, socially, etc.) apart from others. Such is the indispensable challenge of African spirituality in a world so thoroughly entrenched in philosophical frameworks that privilege the individual over against the community.

Interestingly enough, the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, provides a fascinating case study of a person who, on the one hand, pays homage to African and African-American legacies of communality, and who, on the other, at times, forgoes the African moral legacy in exchange for another.

In his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2012, President Obama spoke movingly of how notions of community and responsibility guide him when he stated that his belief in the importance of opportunity for all people “comes from my faith in the idea that I am my brother’s keeper and I am my sister’s keeper; that as a country, we rise and fall together. I’m not an island. I’m not alone in my success. I succeed because others succeed with me” (“Remarks by the President at the National Prayer Breakfast,” February 2, 2012). Similarly, in his address on the night of his reelection on November 7, 2012, the President spoke of what, for him, makes America exceptional:

What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on Earth—the belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another, and to future generations; that the freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for comes with responsibilities as well as rights, and among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That’s what makes America great (“Remarks by the President on Election Night,” November 7, 2012).

In the notion of a people who “rise and fall together”; in the notion that he is “not an island”; in the notion of “bonds that hold together,” of shared destiny, of “certain obligations to one another,” President Obama resonates with the best of African moral philosophy, which holds that persons are only persons insofar as they live in and through a community of people. It would seem, then, that the communality of African spirituality absolutely informs Obama’s presidency, as can be seen in efforts to provide wider access to healthcare, and in his attention to people struggling economically. However, I would also suggest that the President, in practice, has been largely unable to extend the concept of community beyond the borders of the U.S., as is evidenced in years of drone strikes killing alleged militants and civilians (including women and children) in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere, as well as in his current plans to invade Syria. Even domestically, it would seem in policy and practice that the notion of interconnectedness with others stops at the walls of prisons, on the other side of the tracks where poor people continue to struggle, while people and entities (the wealthy, high-earning corporations, Wall Street) already well off continue to thrive.

During his re-election ceremony, President Obama attempted to symbolically place himself, as a black man in the White House, in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr., by placing his hand on Dr. King’s Bible when swearing the oath of the presidency. In response, Cornel West, during a panel discussion on C-SPAN, proclaimed with the righteous anger and vigor he so often summons that, when he heard Obama would place his hand on King’s Bible, he found himself angry: “So the righteous indignation of a Martin Luther King, Jr., becomes a moment in political calculation, and that makes my blood boil. Why? Because Martin Luther King, Jr., he died on the three crimes against humanity he was wrestling with: Jim Crow…carpet bombing in Vietnam…poverty of all colors…” He goes on:

But when he put it [on] Martin’s Bible, I said, ‘This is personal for me,’ because this is the tradition that I come out of. This is the tradition that’s connected to my grandmother’s prayers and my grandfather’s sermons and my mother’s tears and my father’s smiles, and it’s over against all of those in power who refuse to follow decent policies. So I say to myself, Brother Martin Luther King, Jr., what would you say about the new Jim Crow? What would you say about the prison-industrial complex? … Then, what do you say about the drones being dropped on our precious brothers and sisters in Pakistan, and Somalia, and Yemen? Those are war crimes just like war crimes in Vietnam. Martin Luther King, Jr., what would you say? ‘My voice hollers out’…don’t tame it with your hand on his Bible.

I believe Dr. West’s critique here is one our nation can’t do without—and one that is particularly salient in a consideration of the sources of African moral philosophy that places the wellbeing of the community above all else, and which only understands the individual as part of a community. Based on much of his rhetoric, it would seem President Obama grasps, and perhaps is even guided by, the moral frameworks of the Africa from which his father came. And yet, it would also seem that the President struggles to extend that philosophy of mutuality to all people.

Where else might these considerations go, and in what ways might considerations of the sources of African and African-American spirituality be extended into public dialogue around the policies and procedures of a nation like the U.S.? I would find it helpful to see raised examples of more contemporary models of nation-states or cities or even smaller communities that took the risk of structuring their common life as if there really were a common good, as if each person could truly say, “I am because we are.” South Africans under apartheid, of course, offer an important example. But what other recent examples are there of peoples who found creative ways to integrate the virtues of African sociality into policies that guide a people? Perhaps by holding up such examples, we might learn more about the power of African spirituality in the publics of the U.S. and around the world, and in the process, call to account leaders who just might have ears to hear and be able to respond in kind to the wisdom of the African and African-American moral tradition.

Episteme #2