Resources / Ripples & Wipeouts

I’m hardly surprised that in Honolulu in the 1970s, Barack Obama became Barry.  A few years earlier, I’d started referring to myself as Mary because no one on New York’s Lower East Side knew what to make of a girl named Mireille.  When a child grows up among friends and neighbors who’ve never heard of his first name, let alone befriended anyone with such a moniker, being adaptable on issues of identity is about more than fitting in. It’s a means of belonging and connecting. 

Much has been written about Barack Obama’s personal history—his bi-racial heritage and Hawaiian and Indonesian upbringing. The new president-elect’s speaking style – his eloquent oratory, his conversational curiosity – has gotten equal attention. As a former journalist and communications consultant who like Obama switched back to my alien-sounding given name during college, I’m struck by how Obama blended the alien and familiar aspects of himself to communicate his message and unify millions behind him. What does Obama’s unique mix of cultures and communications styles mean for us and our clients? What can we learn from it?

Some aspects of the campaign reminded me of the 1995 movie “Crimson Tide.” It’s about two submarine commanders sparring over who the real enemy is in a nuclear age (the film is currently on constant movie channel rotation). John McCain seemed to be playing the tradition-bound Gene Hackman role; Obama the brainy upstart played by Denzel Washington. In the movie, both men were staunch patriots – and age differences alone couldn’t account for the stark difference in their styles: Hackman’s old-school commander was direct, blunt and revealed little about what was underneath the uniform. Washington played a big-picture leader whose responses were informed by his many identities as soldier, husband, father, intellectual and member of his race.  In other words, Washington’s actions had to be consistent with his many identities.

Back in April 2007, a friend asked my views on the primaries. Though I was struck by Obama’s website, it was his preference for the word “we’” over “I” that most fascinated me. Obama uses “we” not just as shorthand for the “wisdom of crowds” or in the viral, blogging credo of “information-is-improved-the-more-it-is-shared.” He uses it because for him, the separateness and singularity of the first pronoun feels inadequate. “We” is the logical embodiment of all his identities. The Obama communications era isn’t just about the changing demographics of our country. It is about the diversity of the self. It is about using our multiple identities to connect and belong to, and to bridge differences with, others. It is about being reconciled with our complex, layered identities. If the President-elect’s soaring eloquence in speech-making feeds the souls of those hungering for inspiration, his conversational manner is a feast for those of us who thrive at the intersection of ideas, intellect and identity. 

Think back to the debates. When Obama developed a response to a question, or spoke conversationally, he often did so haltingly, as he touched base with and reconciled his many selves – and the communities they represent. It was as if you could see the synapses firing as he culled his vast stores of knowledge and his expansive personal history to affirm his challengers’ views (how often did he say “John is absolutely right when he says….”) while formulating responses that were oppositional. As one blogger put it: Obama was “spinning answers in real time and on the fly...able to work several ideas at once.”

To catch this movement – one which will define our society for well into this millennium—we’ll need to recognize and respect the many identities an individual or groups of individuals choose for themselves. What’s more, we cannot think merely in terms of consumers, voters or the workforce. An even deeper, richer feedstock will be needed to communicate and resonate with communities of color, clout, generation, sexual orientation and many more. Having claimed the White House, this multicultural America is poised to take over any legacy institution that is part of the U.S. “power base.” Our challenge is to help our clients become fluent in the varied languages, styles, thinking, preferences and perspectives of communities of color, clout, generation, sexual orientation and values. We don’t want our clients scrambling to catch up the way so many members of the media had to on November 5th.

With Obama as an inspiration, we can also become far more adept at synthesizing the multiple communities to which we each belong, and speak more authoritatively to the constituents of each.  Consider the simple yet rich reduction:  “Yes We Can.” The slogan was a rallying cry that moved disparate members of our sophisticated, global, high-tech, inter-connected, polarized, media-saturated, multigenerational society, through the vocabulary of a toddler.

The world has never been quite where we find it today.  All eyes are on a visibly black man who invisibly embodies so much more, a man for whom the graceful navigation of his many communities seems to come effortlessly.  Can we help our clients understand that our country is populated by millions just like him?  Yes we can.

-- Mireille Grangenois is Managing Director, US Multicultural Practice at Burson-Marstellar in Washington, DC.