The Tucson speech

Ok, I perceive a certain approving consensus, right and left, about Obama's Tucson speech. Also the LD didn't hesitate to say that it was great, really presidential, he even perceived in it a touch of sincerity.

And though, I am diffident. I'll try to explain you why.

There was an old book by Michael Novak entitled "choosing our king". That's what the President of the United States is: an elected king. My diffidence comes from here.

In England it affirmed itself since the late eighteenth century a sort of diarchy between king and prime minister: the first reigns but doesn't govern, the second governs but doesn't reign. In spite of the fact that monarchy has disappeared almost everywhere else in Europe, something of the kind still holds true. In Italy, for example, after the defeat in WWII the king was substituted by a president, about whom, though, it can be said the same it is said of the king: he reigns but doesn't govern.

Not so in the US, where the president reigns and governs.

The present POTUS was great during the electoral campaign, making inspiring speeches, with people swooning of excitement. Those speeches were all about what would mean his reigning. Almost not a word about his governing, which actually turned disastrous. So on the whole also his reining failed: he had promised as a king to unite, once in govern he actually divided. And all those great speeches appeared to be mere electoral mockery.

We have now this new great speech. Is it a presidential speech? Or isn't it just an electoral speech in view of the second mandate, to regain the consensus that his disastrous governing made him lose?

HP

An answer to the answer

I have no reading of the matter.

Mine was just a question.

I understand what is involved: racial prejudice (which lives in contemporary reality as well as the personal and collective memory of American society and its members, notwithstanding great strides forward).

I can understand this, though I have little to help me appreciate the rawness of America's experience of racism.

Until recently, racism, strictly speaking, was rather unknown in Italy, for the simple reason that there were virtually no people of non-European descent living in the country, and very few visitors.

Regional prejudices were strong, however, with people from the North looking down on people from the South.

When, back in the Fifties, many southern Italians moved to the city of Turin, for example, it was not unusual to find places with the notice, "for rent, save to Southerners".

The problem is becoming more strictily racist nowdays that Italy is favored destination of emigrants from North Africa and elsewhere.

Our experience of the phenomenon is very much different from that of African Americans, and of American society generally, though: people come to Italy of their own accord, not on slave ships.

The sensibilities are therefore different, and I recognize that.

As things stand, there was enough to my ears to raise the question, out of simple incredulity: I found it hard - and still find it extremely unpleasant - to believe that policemen might enter a man's house, and gratuitously manhandle him.

If you tell me that this can happen, I cannot but acknowledge the existence of a sad, though simple state of affairs.