I watched the election returns at a friend's apartment on the Upper West Side. At about midnight, Obama spoke about shared sacrifice, friendship, and perfecting America. When his audience swelled, he cautioned them that there would be false starts and setbacks. Several times he could have taken them over the edge and basked in the glory, but he chose instead to hold them back with a bit of truth. We were still overjoyed. And proud.
He counseled us on the decisions we would have to make. That our progress requires a square look at our problems, not more lies that everything will be fine. He showed us that a better future will come to us through shared sacrifice and friendship rather than infighting and trickle-down benefits that never quite trickle down. And he treated the audience to what it needed to hear, rather than what it wanted. He is a careful man, and victory never gave way to frenzy, where good things rarely happen.
I could say he's a good speaker and leave it at that. But when I got back to my neighborhood I saw something I'd never seen before in New York.
I came out of the subway and everyone was packed cheek-to-jowl in the intersection. Nothing new there. There was cheering, yelling, drinking, picture-taking and lots of smiles between strangers. In the deli, the girl who picked Sapporo over Bud Light received a friendly boo.
After sitting patiently by for a long time, the unusually permissive police began to assemble one block to the south. They wore full riot gear. It's protocol and it's necessary, but it's always a scary sight. People began to stream towards them, cameras in hand. And so went the dance. Citizen journalists, so used to repression, running towards a fight. This is all wrong, I thought. Don't they know they're just doing their jobs? Don't they know that you can't block an intersection forever?
Like any New Yorker, I thought, "Things are about to get bad -- I better get closer," and I made for the standoff. The cops looked tense. A mustachioed police strongman even seemed weary.
One kid's chant quickly caught fire:
"N - Y - P - D!"
"N - Y - P - D!"
The strongman smiled to his partner. The cops were happy too! These people were taking pictures, not collecting evidence! What a crazy thing to see on the streets of Brooklyn!
As the police moved through the crowd, the chants changed to "Brave - est!" and "We - Love - You!" as the crowd packed itself onto the sidewalks. A bus came through and it changed to "M - T - A!" The garbage truck blurted a deep honk and everyone clapped.
A young female officer stood facing my section of sidewalk. Her visor was halfway down and she held her baton securely across her body. She wanted to be stone-faced. She gave it everything, but then someone yelled out, "Look, she's smiling!" and we all laughed, even her.
I like to think that Obama's tone and message had something to do with everyone's behavior. Maybe this is just the way crowds act when they don't feel like they need to fear the police.
Of course, someone eventually threw a bottle and things got hairy. This is Brooklyn, after all. Too much joy can make a guy tense.