Representation

So it is election time, which has me thinking a lot about how we choose to represent ourselves. If anybody has the job of representing more people than they possibly ever could, it has to be the leader of a nation.

President Obama won many of us over because we felt that he could represent more of us than his predecessors and competitors. This may be true, but of course there will always be those who feel that they are not being emblamatized well or even at all. Right now the Sikh community in America is urging President Obama to reconsider his decision to cancel a trip to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India. The president made his decision after questions were raised about how he would cover his head when entering the center. He has spent years trying to disassociate himself from being representative of Muslims and the mere thought of images circulating of him with his head covered was probably enough to give his advisors heart attacks. (Sikhs are not Muslim by the way, but rather practice a faith which draws from Hindu and Islamic beliefs)

Lying crumpled on a table, a piece of cloth has no meaning. But swaddle a baby in it, put a picnic on top of it, drape it over a piece of artwork, a bed, or a table, wrap it around your head...and suddenly the cloth takes on meaning. After performing any of these functions, the cloth is still the cloth. It is you that has changed. I think this is beautiful, but at the same time we have to be careful of situations like this. Why does a piece of cloth have the power to change a person's mind? Whatever power we give to an object, it still has the possibility of being nothing more than the piece of crumpled cloth.

Matters of state aside, we represent one another in very personal ways. Whether we mean to or not, we represent our families, our teachers, our mentors, our bosses, our hometowns, our choices; in fact, we ourselves are representations of every moment that has ever come before. I certainly know that I tear up any time one of my parents or mentors looks at me and tells me "I am so proud of you." They have done so much right by me, and it makes me extremely happy to know that they feel I am doing the same for them. In this way we represent one another.

I think I still have Genet on the brain.