Rosa sat so that Martin could march
Martin marched so that Jesse could run
Jesse ran so that Obama could win

Obama must win so that our children can fly......

I would be remiss if I didn't say something about the the amazing events of this past week. Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, on November 4, 2008. Amazing!

I've never lived my life paying much attention to race. I was very lucky to have been born at the tail end of the Baby - Boomer generation, and even luckier to have grown up in Yellow Springs, Ohio. A hot bed of Quaker influenced, hippie intellectuals who (and this is one of my first memories of race relations)would not not even tolerate a barber in our little village who said that he would not cut "Negro Hair". I remember going to my first town" demonstration" when I was six or seven. I loved it. Of course to me , it was just a time of seeing all my friends and singing. WE SHALL OVERCOME, and other great protest songs. There was such a feeling of community;even as a child my impression was that the whole town was there, all races. and we were one. The upshot was that the barber was boycotted and picketed,and eventually left town.

All this is to say that I was raised - if not colorblind -then darned close to it. When I voted for Barack Obama I was very careful to not vote because he is a member of The people of colour, as I am. I simply thought that he was the right person for the job. So I was totally taken aback by the upwelling of emotion - of pride - that filled my heart. I always did believe that anyone could become president, but I guess I never thought that a person of colour (or a woman for that matter) would actually do it in my lifetime.
I found myself wishing that my grandparents were still alive. They would be .....blownover by this.
These were the same people who freaked out because I had White friends.
I found that I unconconciously walked a bit taller ,smiled a bit more easily. I realized that for a brief shining time , we americans lived up to all our boastful talk.
I'm proud of us!
It remains to be seen what all this will actually mean down the road. But for now we will bask in the post-election afterglow.