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Updated Tuesday, January 20, 2009 11:40 AM
Pride
Pride. I'm beginning to understand what it means to be truly proud of my nation. Michelle Obama drew the wrath of million when she said -- at the time when historic numbers of voters turned out to send the momentum of the presidential election in her husband Barack's direction -- for the first time in her life she was really proud of her country.
I defended her at the time because, I thought I understood, that it's hard when you live in a nation that is really two nations, that people of her background have fewer opportunities. I empathized with the notion that too few people exercise their rights and responsibilities to fully realize the vigorous ideal and in peril of Lincoln's warning, "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
But there's more to the realization of a full measure of pride in my country. To perfect our union we must work consistently toward the notion that all human beings are created equal. This is larger and grander than the simple fact that today a man of African American descent takes the oath of office. Barack Obama is, after all, exactly as much white Kansan as he is black African. His life past birth place and genetics has gathered knowledge and sensitivities of cultures distant and exotic from most of ours.
Since Nov. 4, I've noticed that I can take a deeper patriotic and human breath. Suddenly I can dare to believe that my children and grandchildren can inherit a world community that has evolved spiritually. In the past few years we've heard over and over that this might be the first generation of Americans that won't hand a better world to their children. Mostly that is meant in the material sense. And that might be the case. But, for the first time in decades I believe that we will be able to pass to them a better world: One in which we believe we share a destiny with other lands; one in which we believe all of our fates are intertwined; one in which we believe that democracy will not continue to exist without each of us working to perfect our union.
What Michelle was expressing, as I understand it now, is that up until this moment, every hope of African Americans had an asterisk by it. Either ascendancy to an office or activity or recognition happened because they were black or didn't happen because they were black. African Americans have lived in a kind of suspension: Their responsibility was to chip away at barriers of thought and spirit: Next time, be patient, work hard, work harder. Today Obama raises his hand, and the asterisk is gone.
I am so proud of this nation. Not because we have conquered racism or partisanship in any sense. (We have yet to elect a woman or a non-Christian.) I'm proud because people of every color, age, creed, party identity, gender, gender identity, religion and philosophy came together under Barack Obama's banner. We each worked hard, then harder. We each invested according to what we had to make this moment possible: Talent and time, money, even begrudging respect. In the end it had less to do with race and party than it did to intelligence, ideas and inspiration.
I am so proud of this nation because what is taking place at this moment in Washington, D.C.: A peaceful transfer of power, the nature of which proves that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream was aspiration not fantasy.
 Comments ... 4 found!
: 3/12/2010
" But, for the first time in decades I believe that we will be able to pass to them a better world: One in which we believe we share a destiny with other lands; one in which we believe all of our fates are intertwined; one in which we believe that democracy will not continue to exist without each of us working to perfect our union."
This point is worth repeating Ms. Williams, too many today look for a man/woman to lead us to glory, it is now time to look to a more spiritual guidance. Our children will inherit a sense of what type of creation they truly are as well as others and a respect that will surpass our deficit.
A Believer
Racism? : 1/31/2009
While I might agree that there are still racists in the US, the situation has been changing drastically in the past 30 years. This is not the 60's...black folks are not being treated the same as they were in the 60's, not by a long shot. The problem is, many blacks still maintain the victim mentality just as if it were the 60's. It's become an excuse to demand that our government create more entitlements to compensate for "white oppression", which in my opinion no longer exists in the way that many black portray it as such. I would even go as far to characterize it as a "neurotic obsession" that continues to divide American society. There are cultural differences that account for distinct levels of achievement among races, and that racism cannot be blamed for "black failure" anymore. There as still so many longstanding "myths" about race that are perpetuated by people like Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton, who make their living in the "civil rights industry". There are far too many "misguided" solutions such as multiculturalism and proportional representation, which is nothing more than fighting discrimination by practicing it. The government must cease to legislate issues on a racial basis, because this, too, is perpetuating the claim of racial inequity. The antagonists such as Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton (among many others) have to keep the myth of racism alive simply because the end of racism would also mean the end of the claim of black victimization.
J Mitchell
namecalling : 1/27/2009
Rusty, being from the south, I take offense to your backward hillbilly nec comments. That's a very small majority, and you have your head DEEP in the sand if you don't think there are racists in the north and other parts of the country. It sounds from your comments as if you are the one with a problem when it comes to race.
Southern and Proud of it!
Black America : 1/26/2009
Never thought I would see a black president at least not in my lifetime (or a woman running for office either for that matter) It's too bad we still have ignorant southerners who still belong to the kkk and other groups like them, and that they still want to over-throw the election. Bush handed Obama tha largest batch of problems that any president has had to deal with, and instead of total national support we have these backward hillbilly neo's trying to stop anything that might be good for America. Me no I am not black, I am white and middle of the line politically. Don't agree with everything Obama is doing or trying to do, but do agree with most of it.(I didn't agree with anything bush did). And on one last note, Blacks in America are not African Americans, they are black americans or just americans for that matter. I have american Indian and Irish forefathers but I don't call myself Irish American or Indian American or even Irish Indian American.
Rusty
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