“This is the permanent home for hope,” Valerie Jarrett, former top White House adviser and current CEO of the Obama Foundation, told an assemblage of reporters last week at the new Obama Presidential Center.
Good, I thought. So if we lose all hope, we’ll know where to look for it.
“Hope.” The word is the first thing you see, entering the center — a Jack Pierson artwork made from salvaged sign letters. The placard adds the note of melancholy that must accompany any clear-eyed reaction to the new institution: “Though the word’s meaning is uplifting, the decaying materials can also evoke feelings of loss and longing for an era since past.”
The key question being: Is it the dead-and-gone-and-buried past? Or just stepped-out-for-a-cigarette past? I considered this, waking through the “Hope and Change Lobby.”
“Change.” Another word whose inclusion here just assumes improvement. Things change for the better. But do they? There has been dramatic change in the past year. The country divided between those aghast and grief-riven at the changes, and those who either are glad or don’t care.
With the Obama center’s central tower being minutely critiqued, the thing for me to do, as a museum fan, was explore the museum, four floors of the tower’s eight, the vanguard of an endless herd of thundering schoolchildren and aging liberals returning to breathe deep an era that can seem as distant as the Renaissance.
The place is a marvel of museum craftsmanship, with tangible objects buoyed by blocks of text and plenty of videos to gaze at before moving on. You can fruitfully spend an hour here, or three.
Nothing jarred, beyond the unfortunate sculpture of Barack and Michelle Obama, which didn’t quite capture either — something off about the president’s eyes, too close together perhaps, and that grin. While the former First Lady is unrecognizable.
We start with the birth of our nation, “Toward a More Perfect Union,” the opening sentence a nod toward our perilous times: “America has always been a work in progress.”
Let’s hope so. I’d hate to think we’ve arrived at our final destination.
We get a history of Obama’s America. Watergate undercut liberal faith in government.
“Everything seemed broken,” said the 44th president, who narrates the exhibits.
But change — the good kind — came.
“It felt like the world was moving in a new direction,” Obama says. “Then came political pushback from those that longed for a return to what they thought of as law, order and traditional American values. “
Ronald Reagan is in some ways a stand-in for our current president.
“We were told government wasn’t the solution to the problem, it was the problem,” Obama says. “That white Americans, men and conservative Christians were somehow being targeted by liberal elites. At the same time that these political divisions were increasing, new information technologies were changing the way we live, and work, and communicate. But again and again, we saw that change would not be denied.”
As Charlie Brown said, “How can we lose when we’re so sincere?”
“There’s nothing America can’t handle if we actually look squarely at the problem!” Obama says on an endless loop.
But is his new presidential center looking squarely at the problem? If the name of his successor appears in the museum, I missed it. History will forever chew over how one of the smartest, most eloquent presidents in our history led to … the guy we have now.
But Obama is no more responsible for the furious reaction to his presidency than I would be if somebody put a brick through my window with “JEW” painted on it. The urge to blame the victim is strong. Maybe faith in Obama was such, it’s tempting to imagine that if only he had done … something magic … then all this could have been avoided. Maybe. But looking at the entire arc of American history, it’s hard to say which president reflects the true spirit of our nation. It’s up for grabs.
Hope can uplift. Or tantalize. Inspire. Or torment. Hope is the last coin in your pocket when all your money is spent. As the organizers outlined their impressive programs for involving youth, drawing in communities, advocating change, I could not help but think of the world outside, where literally every value being celebrated here — diversity, kindness, community — is being shredded. The place made me think of earnest interior designers laying bright fabric swatches on the back of a sofa in a house that’s on fire.
After the museum, I wandered the rest of the campus — a playground, a sledding hill, the Home Court, the coolest basketball court ever. There, inlaid in the floor, are several sentiments. One is: “GET UP AND DO SOMETHING.” Yes, indeed. But what?