Let America be America again…

The Left is becoming respectable. Anti-Bushism is not only getting mainstreamed, it has  become commercially viable. Even while blacks are pushed to the ghettos of abject poverty and big corporations call the shots

Sanjay Kapoor Washington

Just at the edge of Washington's historic U-street, scene of the violent race riots of the 1960s that were triggered after the assassination of Martin Luther King, a new hangout with unlikeliest of names — Bus Boys and Poets — has come up to celebrate political diversity, informed debate, Epicureanism and anti-Bushism. Promoted by an anti-war activist and Iraqi entrepreneur, Andy Shallal, Busboys and Poets has been a roaring success in the few months that it has been in operation — evidence that anti-Bushism is not only getting mainstreamed, but it has also become commercially viable. It is also a manifestation of the steady rise of the Left in the US among the young (17-35 years) who are desperate for change and looking out for a leader who shares their concerns to build a more inclusive and humane order. 

Busboys and Poets, inspired by poet Langston Hughes, as Shallal is known to point out, is located at the very point from where the first stone was thrown by protestors against those who gave legitimacy to the killing of Martin Luther King. It is the inclusive spirit of Washington that revels in the movements that brought about greater integration among the blacks and whites. The café fulfilled the felt need to have a place where people disillusioned by the flawed and draconian policies of the government could sit and discuss ways to soothe their brutalised souls and connect with the like-minded.

The symbolism of this place would feed myths in the coming days, if the efforts of many of those who hang out at this 'crossroads' see the return of a more democratic and responsible government. They want to re-interpret the meaning of 'patriotism' away from the divisive laws that have flowed out in the name of 'homeland security' by bringing it closer to the words of Hughes inscribed on the café's wall, “Let America be America again, let it be the dream it used to be.”

It was, therefore, not surprising that the café was the venue of a major fund-raising for a democratic candidate, John Edwards, who came there after an intense debate amongst other presidential democratic candidates at the nearby Howard University auditorium. Edwards got a good round of applause for his views on Iraq and how President George W Bush was botching up things both at home and abroad. Most of $250 seats in the café were sold out and it was possible to see great enthusiasm for the candidate.

Talking to some of the young people in the café surfing the net there — wireless is free in Busboys — it was clear that the favourite of the young was the wiry-coloured lawyer from Illinois, Barack Obama. Even when he was speaking at the Howard University, the crowd seemed to hang on to his every word. He may have disappointed many in the predominantly black audience as Obama was circumspect and did not speak what they wanted to hear about their miserable state in the country, but he spoke with passion and authority on health, immigration and Iraq. Quite evidently, Obama did not want to be seen as just a black leader and wanted to take along the whites, too, who were pained by the manner in which the Bush-Cheney duo were running the administration.