By Dorian de Wind
The Moderate Voice
AUSTIN, Texas –The “Only in America” days may be back again.
And, yes, “it’s official. Georgia Democratic Senators-elect Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are going to Washington.”
Raphael Warnock, an African American who grew up along with 11 other brothers and sisters in the Kayton Homes public housing project in Savannah, Georgia, and whose mother picked “somebody else’s cotton,” delivered a stunning defeat to Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, “in all likelihood, the richest person on Capitol Hill,” in Tuesday’s runoff election in Georgia.
But his victory means much more.
Warnock becomes the first Black senator to ever represent the state of Georgia, just the 11th Black senator in U.S. history and the first Georgia Democrat elected to the Senate in more than 15 years. Additionally, along with Senator-elect Ossoff, Warnock will change the balance of power in Washington, making Biden’s job of governing and of pursuing his legislative agenda that much easier.
Commenting on this improbable path for the son of a cotton picker who was born when both of Georgia’s senators were segregationist Democrats, Warnock simply said, “This is America” and wants young persons “to know anything is possible.”
Senator-elect Reverend Warnock has devoted the last 15 years leading the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr. preached.
On the eve of the election, referring to his fellow Georgia Democrat also running for the U.S. Senate, Rev. Warnock said, “I’m ready to work alongside my brother Jon Ossoff, as you send us to the United States Senate.”
His “brother” is of course Democratic Senator-elect Jon Ossoff, at 33 the youngest Democratic senator-elect since Joe Biden in 1973. He will join eight other Jewish senators currently serving and has stressed the importance of a Black-Jewish alliance ahead of the election.
Young Jewish Ossoff, former national security aide for Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson and a former journalist, is the son of Richard Ossoff, of Russian Jewish and Lithuanian Jewish descent and of Australian immigrant Heather Fenton. While attending high school in Northlake, Georgia, Ossoff interned for civil rights leader and U.S. Representative John Lewis.
In July, the campaign of Republican Senator David Perdue ran a Facebook ad for five days that featured an image of Jon Ossoff with his nose digitally enhanced to appear longer than it is.
In response, Ossoff tweeted:
First you lengthened my nose to remind people I’m Jewish… then you called me an Islamic terrorist… then a Chinese communist…you shouldn’t do everything your Washington handlers tell you, or you’ll lose your soul along the way.
It could be called poetic justice that the victim of such an anti-Semitic attack, a descendant of “Ashkenazi immigrants who fled pogroms at the turn of the 20th century…who was raised among relatives who survived the Shoah” has now scored such an important victory over his tormentor, a “virulent and unrepentant anti-Semite.”
Also on the eve of the historic Georgia election, Ossoff said:
Tomorrow we make history, and think about how far we’ve come, Atlanta. Think about how far we’ve come in the great state of Georgia…You did that. You did that. And now…your standard bearers are the young Jewish son of an immigrant and a Black pastor who holds Dr. King’s pulpit at Ebeneezer Baptist Church. Think about how far we’ve come, Atlanta…
And history they will definitely be making.
When Black pastor Warnock and his young Jewish “brother,” Jon Ossoff, are sworn in as brand-new Senators in the 117th Congress, the following sentiments expressed by the new Senators themselves certainly apply:
• “Think about how far we’ve come…”
• “This is America. Anything is possible.”
• “I am an iteration and an example of the American dream.”
• “That I am serving in the United States Senate in a few days pushes against the grain of so many expectations, but this is America and I want some young person who’s watching this to know anything’s possible.”
• “…because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else’s cotton picked her youngest son to be a United States senator…Tonight, we proved with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible.”
Or just simply, “This is America, “Only in America,” “the American Dream.”
*
Dorian de Wind is a columnist for The Moderate Voice, with which San Diego Jewish World trades stories under auspices of the San Diego Online News Association.