(Mehves Konuk)

Barack Obama doesn’t live here anymore, but his presence does.

A few times a week I walk past that sign. I work inside the security area, teaching elementary school students in an afterschool program that rents space in the huge, Byzantine-inspired KAM Isaiah Israel temple that faces the Obama home. Every time I enter the secure area, I feel myself enter a new kind of space.

Lift the metal barrier that blocks the sidewalk, walk to the corner towards the black sedan. You become suddenly conscious of your body, feeling watched from every direction at once, even when no one is looking at you. The car door opens; a Secret Service agent steps out.
“Afternoon. Where are you headed today?”
“I’m going to work in the temple.”
“Okay. Have a good day.”

The Secret Service agents who work on the site are real people: they smile, they are gracious, they are serious but never severe, and they will play with children. They have earned the trust of the neighborhood. But they do not discuss their personal experiences, and when asked even the simplest questions about their work, the agents regretfully refer to a saying they learned in the academy: “The United States Secret Service speaks with one voice, and I am not that voice.”

The house has long been Obama’s home, but what “Obama” means has changed a lot in two years. This neighborhood once knew Barack Obama the man, and it has seen the idea of Obama, that second presence, grow up around him. Now the man is gone, but the idea is still here. It is in the name printed across our winter hats, the face emblazoned in gold on our T-shirts next to the images of Malcolm and Martin, the Obama special on local restaurant menus, and in the enthralling illustration stenciled in layers of red, white, and blue above the word HOPE that hung from every lamppost on 53rd Street for months after the election.

The idea of Obama is in more than our clothes: it is in us. Like no other figure of this generation, he has become a reference for how we understand our world—not only our politics, but our individual lives, our history, the color of our skin, and the content of our character. The South Side’s native son has become the consolidated image of American hope, and this neighborhood is proud of him. But there is also a kind of trauma in a transition so intense.

The kids I work with remember when playing next to Obama’s house was a novelty. Now they climb over the riot-guards to retrieve lost soccer balls. One 11-year-old boy remembers watching Michelle Obama teach her youngest daughter how to ride a bike in the street in front of her home. The future First Lady held the seat of the bike for her wobbling daughter while Secret Service agents stood on the sidewalk and kept a perimeter around the intimate moment. The kids have also pointed out to me the flag that now hangs from the house’s front porch. Before the campaign there was none.

In the metal barriers and the black SUVs, there is also a reminder that Obama’s presence, because he represents such hope, must also show what we fear. I asked one of my students what she thought the house was being protected from. Five years old, no front teeth, beautiful brown eyes still focused on the book in front of her, she said, “Terrorists.”

It is hard to imagine that the security around Obama’s house is part of the same process that has produced the more recognizable and comforting images of his presidency. But it is. Most people who live near the President’s house have never met him, but they have met the people who protect him. And most of us will never meet Obama the man, but we live every day with a body of words, images, beliefs, and behaviors that carry our collective hope and fear, and that, no matter where we stand in relation to it, has a presence in our lives that is as real as metal and concrete.

There is nothing different about the air on the other side of the perimeter, but I feel that air differently, and I think anyone who crosses that barrier does too, even the Secret Service agents whose one voice will never say so. The air inside that barrier is hopeful and anxious, reassuring and deeply alienating. Walking around that barrier I have the hugely stupid urge to start sprinting across the lawn, or to do somersaults, to do anything at all to break the heavy normality enforced in that space. But I don’t. When I cross the barrier and step into that sacred, secured space, I can tell myself that the house through the trees on the left is just an empty brick building, that the security is a show, a formality. But it doesn’t matter what I tell myself. Inside that area there is a presence speaking that is louder than I am. One voice is speaking, and I am not that voice.

Do residents and businesses appreciate all the fanfare? Simply put, they do. When asked how Obama had affected business, Paso, Valois’ manager, affirmed that many came from all over the world to see the restaurant: “People,” he said, “want to see where Obama eats.” It’s that simple. For many, Hyde Park provides a glimpse into the life of the President, and to be a part of the community that produced Obama is something that residents are proud of.

DuSable’s inauguration ceremony, “Celebrate the Dream,” was steeped in equal parts historical reverence and euphoria. The face of Martin Luther King Jr. was prominently displayed at both sides of the stage and James Weldon Johnson’s “Negro National Anthem” was sung; the program included a “Historical Guest List” that imagined an inaugural ball full of prominent African-American figures, from George Washington Carver to Rosa Parks to Jimi Hendrix. Dr. Stephanie Davenport kicked off the ceremony with an African libation, and performers Malik Camora and Joshua Alexander gave an African salute of drumming and dancing after the speech. Obama, sometimes called the post-racial candidate, was firmly placed in a racial narrative here. His election was presented as the culmination of African-Americans’ long and storied journey that started on the coasts of Africa, passed through Selma and Montgomery, and has finally made its way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

One of the attendees, Celestine Willis, originally had other plans for Inauguration Day. “I planned two years ago to be at Inauguration,” she said. “But I had a heart attack on December 6 and things changed for me.” Willis, like many others, expressed a mix of emotions: concern about the economy, a feeling of historical fulfillment, a guiding sense of hope, and a need for solidarity. “Being an African-American woman and an African-American woman with a disability, I understand struggle,” she said. “I understand pulling together. I understand community and grassroots support. I think he’s going to ask us [to pull together] today. He’s only one person—we’re all going to have to do this together.”

To close the event, Master of Ceremony Oba William King led the song “I Love My People.” The crowd sang of celebrating African-American self-worth. Before exiting the stage for the last time, King broke into spontaneous dance. “Obama is president! Obama is president! Obama is president! Woo, I can’t believe it.”

Giovanni opened her lecture, which had a total attendance of not more than forty people, by asking a woman in the front row where she had purchased her Obama T-shirt. That, in essence, set the mood for the rest of the morning. From there, she moved on to her opinions that there have only been four First Ladies during the course of American history who were not bigots (Abigail Adams, Dolly Madison, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jackie Kennedy), that John Brown is an American hero who would be on our currency today if he had wanted to repress slaves instead of free them, and that, in reference to Sarah Palin, “the Vice President of the United States should not say ‘you betcha.’ Not allowed.” Along with these assertions, Giovanni voiced support for what she heard was a recent move in the Catholic Church to canonize Martin Luther King, Jr. Nobody in the audience was quite sure where she heard that or why she believed it, but her aimless ranting was in such full force that it would have been a shame to interrupt it.

Wait, so how did Tupac come up out of all that? As it turns out, Giovanni eventually got around to mentioning the two children’s books her tour is supposed to be promoting, “Lincoln and Douglass” and “Hip Hop Speaks to Children,” the latter of which Mr. Shakur is a posthumous contributor to. “Lincoln and Douglass” explores, through story and picture, the friendship between the two great American men, while “Hip Hop Speaks to Children” is a collection of poetry by a wide range of artists (Paul Laurence Dunbar, Mos Def, Gwendolyn Brooks, A Tribe Called Quest) accompanied by a CD recording. If Giovanni had spent more time talking about her new work and less proselytizing, there might be more to say here about her unexpected turn from women’s lib and black power poetry to picture books. However, that was not the case.

Oh well. The tattoo part was pretty interesting.

Obama at college
Barack Obama has strong ties to the University of Chicago. He taught there for twelve years, and his wife Michelle has worked there since 1996. This fall, the University’s Graham School of General Studies offers a course on him, “Barack Obama, Chicago, and African-American Politics,” that began on October 1 and ends the day after Election Day. For two and a half hours every Wednesday night, instructor Charles Branham examines Obama through his writings as well as his campaign, and places both within the context of race and politics in Chicago and America. Branham is a senior historian at the DuSable Museum of African American History, and the author of “Profiles of Great African-Americans.” (Sam Feldman)

Obama on paper
“Obama Paper Dolls,” illustrated by Tom Tierney and published by Dover Publications, elevates Barack Obama’s celebrity status to another level, eternalizing this presidential candidate’s handsome features and iconic smile in a fun novelty item. Including dolls of his entire family—Michelle, Malia, and Sasha—the Obamas are accompanied by a collection of outfits they’ve worn: the wool topcoat Barack wore when he announced his intention to run for President, the wedding dress Michelle wore, and more casual attire Malia and Sasha may wear on a warm sunny day. In explaining the deep significance of his paper doll work, the artist Tierney remarks that paper dolls “can tell us much about people, the clothes they wore, the way they lived and something of the times in which they lived.” So perhaps, in playing with “Obama Paper Dolls,” contemporary American politics may be remembered as a kitschy and disposable artifact. The dolls are available at Toys Et Cetera, at 1502 E. 55th Street. (Yennie Lee)

Obama at the Med
Hailed as a once-frequent hangout of Obama’s, the Medici on 57th Street proudly displays its Obama pride within the walls of the restaurant. Upon entering the Med, you’re greeted by a crowd of its employees in black T-shirts that say “OBAMA EATS HERE” in giant white letters on the back. The Med’s fervent support for Obama doesn’t stop there, however. In case the T-shirts weren’t proof enough of the Obama love, the Med has strategically placed engraved wooden cutting boards that read “Obama 2008″ in every booth. When you use these cutting boards, you’re not only supporting Obama’s campaign—your vegetables are, too. Both the T-shirts ($18 each) and the cutting boards ($35 each) are for sale at the Med. (Tiffany Kwak)

Obama at the African American Fine Arts Show
The Obama trend perhaps most familiar has been the commoditization of his image in the form of bobble-head dolls and Urban Outfitters T-shirts. But with Obama showing up in the art world as the centerpiece of this year’s African American Fine Arts Festival in Bronzeville, there is an indication that Obama is, at the same time, already being raised to the profound status of an accomplished historic figure, even before his election as president. Dawoud Bey, a photographer and Columbia College professor who became famous for his portraits of teenagers in marginalized communities, stepped a little out of his usual aesthetic to take a quite stately-looking color portrait of Obama in his Hyde Park home, staring straight forward with an expression of slight contentment and seriousness. With Bey expressing his excitement for having the opportunity to take the portrait of “the next president of the United States of America” in his blog, it seems that he, along with the architects of the Festival, have boldly proclaimed Obama’s deep significance in the context of a higher cultural realm. (Laura Harmon)

“Libertarian paternalism” sounds like an oxymoron, but two professors at the University of Chicago have written a new book arguing that it is the best approach to governance. In “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness,” UofC Law School professor Cass Sunstein and Graduate School of Business professor Richard Thaler explain how it is possible to influence people to make good choices in areas as diverse as savings, nutrition, and the environment, without restricting their rights to choose. Their method consists of “nudging” people in the right direction, sometimes with economic incentives, but just as often by appealing to the lazy and the irrational in all of us: making the best paths also those of least resistance.

For example, one might nudge schoolchildren to eat healthier food by putting fruits and vegetables at the beginning of the lunch line. Workers can be nudged to save for retirement if they are automatically enrolled in a 401k savings plan with the ability to opt out, rather than being required to sign up if they want to participate. Social norms are also very effective nudges, as in the case of lowering energy use: listing the average neighborhood consumption on each household’s electric bill has been shown to get heavy users to cut back significantly.

There are as many possibilities for nudges as there are factors that influence our decisions. The acknowledgment of these factors is very important to Thaler and Sunstein, who make a distinction between “Homo Economicus,” the standard economics textbook character with “the brainpower of Albert Einstein, the storage power of IBM’s Big Blue, and the self-control of Mahatma Gandhi” and Homo Sapiens, or “you and me.” Personal experience is enough to tell that not all decisions are made on an entirely rational basis, but the authors of “Nudge” are able to shed more light on this fact using recent research in behavioral economics. According to Sunstein, “There have been countless studies of human behavior in the last 30 years or so, with fascinating results; the question is how we can enlist those results to make lives longer, healthier, happier, and even freer.”

The answer involves what Sunstein and Thaler call “choice architecture,” or the framework that shapes how people make decisions. Every time business or government offers people a choice, it is designing such a framework, acting as a “choice architect.” However, the design can never be entirely neutral; even the rules that govern the so-called free market influence people’s decision-making. This makes good choice architecture of great importance to free societies—it’s where the paternalism meets up with the liberty.

Of course, the question then arises, how does the architect decide the right choice, or pick which direction to nudge people? Sunstein acknowledges that this is a complicated question and offers, “A too-simple answer is, that direction that will make their lives go best by their own lights.” Studies can tell us that many Americans feel they should save more, and we know many of us ought to eat less or better, but the “happiness” of the book’s title may be a little harder to define than “health” and “wealth.”

In any case, “Nudge” provides some great suggestions for policymakers and, for all readers, some food for thought. “I use some of this material in my course on managerial decision-making,” says Thaler. “I think there are clearly business applications here.” Both he and Sunstein have also worked as informal advisors to Senator Barack Obama, who is “interested in automatic enrollment programs to help people save money” and in disclosure policies regarding credit cards and mortgages, according to Sunstein. Perhaps it won’t be long before nudges are the norm.

On the side of the Democrats, the race was divided between Obama and Clinton. The two candidates were fighting tooth and nail to win every state and delegate, and by the end of the night, neither candidate had a clear lead. For the Republicans, the race was less intense: McCain was winning most of the states, with Huckabee and Romney trailing behind.

Obama was often the favorite in the crowd, and there was lots of cheering when ABC News announced that he and his wife had cast their ballots that morning in their Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park. Which is not to say that there weren’t any Clinton supporters: when a percentage went up on the screen conveying Hillary as the more popular candidate with women and men over 65, her fans contended that they were “older and wiser”; a response to a previous statement that Obama was a popular choice among young voters due to his youthful appeal and his promise to change stuffy and corrupt Washington politics.

The event at the Grounds, if anything, proved that political involvement, or at the very least political curiosity, is quite prevalent among UofC students. After all, for many students present that night, it was their first time voting, and for pretty much all of them, it was their first time electing a new President.

The UC Dems stuck out in the crowd with their “Smart Ass” t-shirts, and when asked if they had anything to say about the event, they urged students who wanted to become more politically involved to attend a series of events that they are organizing entitled “Get Some Action.” It starts February 18 and ends on the 21st. Ultimately, if Obama is indeed the candidate that most reminds us of John F. Kennedy, then maybe like the young generation of the 1960s, it is time for today’s youth to take responsibility for the social change that they wish to see in their country.

The crowd, which was composed more of boomers than college students, had convened for a Festival of Democracy with the subtitle “Unleashing Radical Imagination.” From 1 to 9pm last Saturday, the event featured speakers including academics, journalists, and activists. It was sponsored by The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, an organization whose programs “promote participatory democracy by creating space for public conversations.”

Those conversations did occur, although the diversity of opinion ensured that few conclusions were reached. The attendees may have been overwhelmingly liberal—or, as they now prefer to be called, progressive—but they were also divided in their loyalties to the Democratic candidates and their party itself.

Before the discussion of these contentious issues, three spoken-word poets offered their respective spins on Chicago’s history, the year 2008, and the experience of being both black and homosexual. Adam Levin articulated the crowd’s mood best, saying, “I’ve got a good feeling about 2008,” even as he equated a future Democratic victory with one for the Cubs.

The first panel was devoted to presidential politics, with speakers Bill Fletcher, Quentin Young, and Laura Flanders each offering his or her take on the current political scene. After they answered the questions of moderator Alice Kim, the floor was opened to any audience member who wished to speak.

Several issues kept cropping up in the comments of both speakers and listeners. First was the fact that progressives have, as Fletcher put it, “had their asses kicked so many times that they’ve gotten used to it.” He argued that this has prevented them from developing a long-term strategy that would actually allow them to win, like that of the well-organized religious right.

Flanders mentioned that our country’s silent majority remains to be mobilized. This is made up of the sixty-five percent of Americans who oppose the war in Iraq, the sixty percent who support legal recognition for homosexual couples, and the voters who helped elect a Democratic majority last fall. If they put pressure on politicians, she reasoned, America would begin to see real progress.

Closely tied to the invisibility of this majority is the subject of media ownership. “The media exercises radical imagination,” said Flanders. “We just have to exercise reality.” That’s difficult at a time of increasing consolidation, when, as one audience member pointed out, Clear Channel owns all the major radio stations in Chicago that attract black audiences.

Another recurring theme in the discussion was the need for a universal, single-payer healthcare system. As a physician who helps organize doctors politically, Quentin Young is predictably concerned about healthcare, and he expounded on the enormous cost of our current system to all Americans. Later on, a man from the audience told how he had been unable to afford health care after experiencing kidney failure and losing his job. After receiving a transplant several years later, he attended a meeting of The Public Square and became politically active. His story seemed to support Young’s stance: “The healthcare struggle can move to become a clear-eyed, radical struggle.”

During the question-and-answer period, the inevitable debate over presidential candidates came to center on Barack Obama. None of the panelists was enamored of him, to say the least. Fletcher went so far as to compare him to an alien in Star Trek who could take the form of anything its viewer wished to see, while the others simply cited his lack of a progressive voting record or platform.

With its mix of social justice and socializing, the Festival of Democracy was typical of the events held at Woodlawn’s Experimental Station. The nonprofit strives to create a community of people whose paths cross at such functions, many of whom would never meet otherwise. “The food element brings people together,” explained co-founder Connie Spreen.

More than anything else, this interaction probably helped to fulfill the festival’s goal of “Unleashing Radical Imagination.” As people milled around, exchanged blog sites, and debated the merits of the Green Party, the greatest value of the panels seemed to be in getting the conversation started.