Idealism

The election is over, the polls have closed and Barack Hussein Obama is now the President-elect of the United States.

Barack Obama visiting his paternal grandmother

It still feels dreamlike; Obama has won, the Democrats have overtaken the House and Senate, and, even among states, there has been a lot of movement to the left. I’ve gotten congratulatory phone calls from my family and I suspect my mother may have secretly voted for Obama (you don’t say that too loud in Payette County, which voted for McCain by an overwhelming 70 percent). Everyone’s talking about Obama being the first black President and how amazing that is; I guess it is a sign of my generation that I didn’t realize how many people were holding their breath for the first black President.

From Finishing Our Work:
A civil war that, in many ways, began at Bull Run, Virginia, on July 21, 1861, ended 147 years later via a ballot box in the very same state. For nothing more symbolically illustrated the final chapter of America’s Civil War than the fact that the Commonwealth of Virginia — the state that once exalted slavery and whose secession from the Union in 1861 gave the Confederacy both strategic weight and its commanding general — voted Democratic, thus assuring that Barack Obama would become the 44th president of the United States…

I grew up in a time of great apathy; Clinton was elected when I was a senior in high school (I missed getting to vote by 10 days) but the Clintons were a very conservative version of the Democratic ticket. When I was in college, political groups languished; I joined the University Progressives in 1995 and there were precisely four of us.

From A Time To Reap For Foot Soldiers of Civil Rights:
For those like Miss Harris who withstood jailings and beatings and threats to their livelihoods, all because they wanted to vote, the short drive to the polls on Tuesday culminated a lifelong journey from a time that is at once unrecognizable and eerily familiar here in southwest Georgia. As they exited the voting booths, some in wheelchairs, others with canes, these foot soldiers of the civil rights movement could not suppress either their jubilation or their astonishment at having voted for an African-American for president of the United States.

I voted for Obama because I think he is an amazing person. I loved the fact that he lived overseas; after three years of overseas experience myself, I hate the image the US has in so many place — not the image of a great and wonderful country (although that might have been true in the past) but the image of a great big bully who refuses to accept that they’re not the underdog anymore. I thought a man who had lived in a poor country overseas could understand that, too. As a man who grew up in a split family and with a single mother, I thought he might have empathy for those less fortunate.

From Finishing Our Work (comment): Here’s another kind of person who has been validated in this election: the single mother. Obama was mostly raised by a single mom and his grandmother. For all the single moms out there working so hard for their children, this election is for you too. (toadmommy, East Coast)

I loved what he had to say about unification; after eight bitterly partisan years, I thought he would be the best candidate and the best President. I voted for him in the primaries (sorry Margo!), and, for the first time in my life, I donated money to a political campaign — his.

I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I realized it was a big deal that he was black (although, as my mother helpfully pointed out, he’s actually half African, half white. Which is just another illustration of how complicated lineage and ethnicity actually is). But, I actually cried when I read some of the articles and letters in the New York Times today; for some people, this is a victory that justifies hours spent knocking on doors, marching in protests, even languishing in jails. For some people the election of a black President is the culmination of a lifetime of effort. At 32 years old, I still feel young; will I see the results of my life efforts so clearly? I certainly hope so.

To Barack Obama and his family I say congratulations; to all the people who registered voters and worked so hard on the streets, I say thank you for your work; to single mothers everywhere who work hard to raise their children, I say look at what can be done; to those of older generations who waited a lifetime to see a black man elected President, I say God bless your efforts.

Tags: civil rights, obama, Politics, race, racism, United States