Here on this momentous day of decision, I wanted to take a step back from the politics for a moment, and thank President Obama. Do you realize what America did four years ago? The same country that was digging in its heels to protect systemic discrination de jure against a whole group of its citizens-- the murders, violence, and exclusion that we've read about and many older than me lived through, inflicted on the American descendants of African slaves brought here against their wills--we have repudiated all of it, just by voting? Though the president himself is not precisely of this stock as the son of a Kenyan father, and a caucasian mother, he really did change the way we thought about all those painful chapters in our history. It by no means ended racism against anyone, but there is now a racial cynicism that will always be anachronistic in our country, by the very fact that Obama was elected. Malia and Sasha Obama really can dream as big as they want, and if one of them dreams of sitting in the very chair where their father sits right now, no one can ever kill it before it has a chance to fly by telling them to "be realistic." Just think about that for a minute.
Countless non-whites have achieved dreams once thought impossible, and this man being elected was neither the beginning, nor the end, of that. But it is another chapter in the amazing story that is America. And the president's own flaws, or the fractious passion of our politics, cannot take it away. How many kids are sitting in school as we speak, dreaming as they never have, because of Barack Obama? You don't have to like him or think he's a good president to be thankful. Nothing will be the same again, and on this score, that's a good unqualified.
In some ways, even if Obama loses, it proves even more how far we've come. The first black president can become the first black one-term president. Someone has to do it. I hope there are many more, I can say with a chuckle.
Apart from anything else, I'm glad for that today. Maybe we needed some distance--and even some dislike--to see it more clearly.
Countless non-whites have achieved dreams once thought impossible, and this man being elected was neither the beginning, nor the end, of that. But it is another chapter in the amazing story that is America. And the president's own flaws, or the fractious passion of our politics, cannot take it away. How many kids are sitting in school as we speak, dreaming as they never have, because of Barack Obama? You don't have to like him or think he's a good president to be thankful. Nothing will be the same again, and on this score, that's a good unqualified.
In some ways, even if Obama loses, it proves even more how far we've come. The first black president can become the first black one-term president. Someone has to do it. I hope there are many more, I can say with a chuckle.
Apart from anything else, I'm glad for that today. Maybe we needed some distance--and even some dislike--to see it more clearly.
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