While I make no secret of the fact that I am rooting for Obama to win today, and am praying that he does, it’s been easy to get lost in the historical significance of what is happening today. It didn’t really hit home for me, become a reality, until I heard the CNN anchor remark on watching Obama cast his vote in Chicago (which is happening live right now).
America enslaved Africans for centuries. People were sold, treated like mere possessions, reduced to fractions of a human in the Constitution, simply based on the color of their skin. Until the late 20th century, African Americans could not go to the same schools as others, had to sit in separate restaurants, could not drink from the same water fountain. They could not vote or were actively disenfranchised. Racism and segregation were very real and daily facts of life for people (and this is not to say that other groups did not suffer too, but my focus here is on the AfAm community). Blacks in America still get the raw end of the deal much of the time through systemic and institutionalized policies that work against them, and that combine with other factors to keep an entire community from achieving what it can.
And today, right now, I am watching a biracial African American man (whose parents relationship would also have been illegal not so very long ago in America under anti miscegenation laws) vote for himself for President of the United States of America. He stands a legitimate, honest-to-God chance of being our next President. And sixty years ago, none of this would have been possible. That is a humbling, amazing, and completely mind-blowing idea.
And it has me in tears.
Why? Because it represents to me that though racism is still a force that we must deal with and eliminate, that there is hope. Hope that we can progress, that we can change, that we can move forward and create a better society. We’ve made progress over the last sixty years; if we had not, Obama would not be the force he is today. To me, that is a fact to be celebrated, and I hope with all my heart that an Obama presidency will help move this country forward again and change it for the better. That is something that is truly possible only in America and it is what I think is America’s greatest strength, and the quality that everyone admires in us. It’s time that our country gets put back on the right path. We can do it.
Yes, we can.
