While there is still surely bigotry and racism in this country, we start everything on a whole different baseline. As much as people have said we have progressed to achieve a more perfect union, it could never truly be achieved until our country, predominantly white, could entrust a Black man to handle the highest office in the land.
President-elect Barack Obama did not get a majority of the White vote. No Democrat does. But he was able to ensure the support of 48% of Whites, higher than any Democrat has received since Jimmy Carter. This was truly a historic moment not just for Blacks, who have had their ancestors bleed and die for a greater cause, but a moment for all Americans to rejoice in a time of progress, no matter your political ideology.
I talked to a very good friend of mine the day after the election. He had always been cautious to declare Obama as the likely winner in this election, partly because there is still a significant amount of racists in this country. He told me that this represented a new period, a new era of this country. For a long time, he was told that people like him could only make it in life if there were dribbling a ball or rapping a lyric. Now, he can tell his daughters that they can become a president of the United States of America. And he assured to me that this not is progress for Blacks, it is progress for all Americans. When George W. Bush became president, people said, "His father was also president and his grandfather was a senator." With Obama, he literally came out of nowhere and came from nothing.
The 44th president will have the largest inbox of any president since Franklin Roosevelt's inaguration in 1933 at the most depressing time of the Great Depression. There are a multitude of duties on his plate. He has already started assembling his new administration, with Rahm Emmanual accepting Obama's offer as the new Chief of Staff. There will be no honeymoon for Obama, because he will have to get to work.
John McCain gave a very gracious concession speech late Tuesday night. He said he would help Obama win, and that Americans should come together. Yet I have seen several Republicans talk about the end of America and how the U.S. will soon turn into a socialist country. Every time I hear one of my conservative friends tell me this, I merely ask them to look at McCain's concession speech. I can not begin to fathom why anyone would not at least hope that Obama has a good presidency. We are in some very, very difficult perilous economic times. The Democrats did not reach a filibuster-proof majority, so the Republicans will still be able to filibuster.
This is a new era in America. The barrier has been broken, the glass cieling has been shattered. Let the reconstruction begin.
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