At Noon today something will occur that I never thought I might see in my lifetime. A dream deferred will become a present reality. We may not be at the mountaintop, but finally now it will be something we can actually see.
Where I grew up, in Middle Georgia, nigger is a word I hear every single day of my life. It is a word that makes me cringe to hear or type. For some reason white people in the south do not realize the pain and exclusion that such a word can hold for a group of people. Today I feel like finally, even though it won’t silence those people, those people are a minority in this world and the kind of ignorance and hatred they represent is dying out with them. Maybe it’s the fact that I grew up here that suprises me so much about Barack Obama winning the Presidency, living here makes it seem like having an equality mindset is a rarity, but I never thought I would actually see this…it gives me great hope that there are more people like myself and my wife whom hate all the racism and ignorance that we have grown acustomed to in the society we have had to grow up in. Both my wife and I have always been ones to stand up against this inane attitude, but more often than not it is like talking to a brick wall about how we are all essentially the same inside…this is our chance to feel like we are no longer the underdogs in a fight like this…like maybe the things we have always believed in us are simply being proven now to the rest of society.
I don’t agree with Obama on a lot of things…I think a chipmunk could do better than Bush, so Obama can’t really dissapoint me there. I don’t even know that Obama represents Change to me, but I do think he represents Progress for society, no matter what mistakes he makes as the President. Obama may be our great uniter, the person that brings this nation together to improve it to the point of being a truly free society. Perhaps equality will occur in the next four years, perhaps things will stay the same. Perhaps President Obama will live up to all the hype about him, get the troops out of the two unjust wars we are in, fix the economy with hyper-inflation (against all odds mind you), and level the playing field for the underprivileged.
I don’t know what Barack Obama will mean for this country after today…but for today at the very least he does represent Hope, Equality, Progress, and the realization of a dream. For today I am proud. For today I have tears of joy instead of tears of pain for my country.
Do us right Mr. President.
