November 5, 2008
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WE DID IT
Renewed hope. Pride. Immense joy. Oozing out every pore.
I’ve forgotten what it feels like to actually care about what The President has to say during a public address and feel secure that he’s got his head together instead of wincing like I’m at the piano recital of a blind, no-armed, no-footed man.
I was 27 years old when I stopped caring about all matters political. Now I’m 35. That’s a long time to come back from the void of apathy – I could’ve gone through College again, twice.
I can’t help but to imagine the wonderful chain of events this has set in motion. The content of the classic Dr. Suess book “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” has just ‘clicked’ in the minds of so many more young children. Inner city youths who will now have another feasible aspiration once thought unattainable — from them will rise a new bumper crop of leaders and pillars of society that will experience the intelligence, eloquence and empathy of a leader who was raised and loved by a white grandmother but yet was also exposed to her racism and fear towards African Americans.
You can’t just conjure up life-experiences like that which pertain to a country as diverse as ours. There is no simulator to figure out ways to solve issues like these unless you’ve lived it.
And now we’ll have a leader in office that has… and is on a daily basis.
But the coolest part for me personally is…
… thinking about when my girls are old enough to be in school – and they’re looking up at the decorative borders lining the walls of their new classroom. The Alphabet.
The Numbers.
The Primary Colors.
And that long row of US Presidential portraits.
And now and forever, when they get to the 44th one – they’ll notice a change from that point on.
And as those Presidential portraits accumulate over the years, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will begin to hopefully see a new direction and growth of: diversity, equality and unity never seen before that sparked from what we as a nation did yesterday.
Comments (2)
well said.
Beautifully written. It is a transformative moment, isn’t it? And one that calls each of us to act to a higher standard. We can no longer say that it isn’t worth struggling because we’ll be held back because of our race, skin color, belief, sex or sexual orientation. We know that long-standing barriers can be broken and that should give us all hope and a new sense of optimism.