4 + 4 = 8?

The Lunar New Year is a time to reconcile with past foes and personal transgressions, as well as a chance to spend precious time with loved ones surrounded by tasty dishes and uplifting discourse. This year, unlike any other, America has elected a president who may be familiar with the prevailing superstitions of East and Southeast Asia. President Barack Obama, a Columbia College graduate who spent a few childhood years in Indonesia, perhaps understands the mass popularity of superstition among individuals. It is well known that President Obama played basketball on the days of primaries and general elections, and I wonder whether he performed that ritual out of superstition or tradition—or perhaps a merger of both. As the nation’s 44th president is tasked with the monumental responsibilities of repairing and reinvigorating the economy and American relations with the outside world, will Chinese superstition be relevant? It all depends on how you view and add up the numbers.

According to ancient and modern Chinese superstition, the number four represents ill fortune and perpetual bad luck, as its literal translation in Chinese means “death.” To such an extreme, the Chinese Diaspora go to great lengths to avoid fours in their phone numbers, e-mail addresses, bank accounts, and even the floor of their apartment or motel room. It will be interesting to see whether the double fours that exemplify Obama’s order in the numerical list of American presidents will reflect the inexorable values of the Chinese. At the same time, the double fours may result in a combined eight, which in Chinese tradition symbolizes great fortune and well-being. Perhaps this will usher in a resurgent era of peace, reconciliation, and prosperity for Americans and non-Americans alike.

There is no question that Obama’s rise to the highest office in the land is a fundamentally American story of ambition, perseverance, and earned fortuity. The question is whether his barrier-shattering election will result in a sense of complacency that all there is to be done on promoting and achieving racial equality has been done. The complacency that I speak of is one in which Americans genuinely believe that we now live in a post-racial, color-neutral world. That regardless of where we all start off, everyone has an equal opportunity to become president. That without continuous attention being paid to the poorest and least in-luck among us, a magical carpet will swoop down and lift individuals to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. For all the promise that members of Columbia’s student body hold, it is irrational to deny that hard work and a certain semblance of fortune contributed to their current presence as degree-seeking students. Just as no one is entitled to a spot on Columbia’s undergraduate roster without painstaking and continued effort throughout high school, poverty, racism, and other social ills will perpetually remain if complacency rules the day.

If Obama’s presidency leads Americans to breathe a sigh of relief that racism and the brutalities of discrimination are relics of the past, then an Obama presidency may bring more lasting damage than initially thought. The notion that Obama’s presidency alone will permanently eliminate the staggering figures of incarceration rates among African American youths or curtail the persistent achievement gap facing African American and Hispanic students in New York City’s public schools is pure fiction. Problems that originate from a legacy of poverty and social injustice are not about to evaporate when an African American steers the ship of the American presidency. Gang violence from south-central Los Angeles to inner-city New York will not dissipate simply
because children regularly see on television a face that resembles their own. It must never be forgotten that an Obama presidency is not a societal panacea, but rather a call to further explore and enhance the opportunities that all Americans deserve.

On a more optimistic note, any observer of last summer’s Olympics in Beijing will have noticed that the number eight was on full display at the opening ceremony, deliberately scheduled to begin on August 8, 2008, at precisely 8:08 p.m. To clarify, according to Chinese superstition, the number eight is the psychological opposite of the number four, and brings with it immense prosperity and a range of newfound opportunities and enviable rolls of the dice. If Obama’s presidency ends up transforming race relations and power dynamics from the ground up without eradicating efforts to lift up those in desperation, then his election will not materialize into complacency. If a page has unequivocally been turned in the chapter of racism that tarnishes the American identity, and people have truly evolved to see others not according to their pigmentation but according to their personality and dignity, the selection of Obama will be a permanent political game-changer traveling on a vehicle that has obliterated the reverse gear. In due course, Americans will be able to determine for themselves whether the numerical order of Obama’s presidency will reflect the Chinese superstition of the numbers individually or add up to a more auspicious combination for America and the world.

The author is a graduate student at Teachers College, majoring in international educational development/higher education.