SCATTERED THOUGHTS ABOUT OBAMA’S PRESIDENTIAL VICTORY

This is what I wrote in my blackberry curve as I watched CNN announce Barack Obama as the President-Elect:

Hope.

Yes this is proof If I ever seen it. I always felt like this country was too racist to vote for black man no matter how much more qualified he was than his white counterpart. Today I am wrong and have never felt happier about being wrong ever.

I feel hope for America for all those people who could have voted the same way they have for last 220 years, “if it aint white, it aint right” but instead chose to put their prejudice and fear of the unknown behind them to vote for Barack Obama and the change he represents. This gives me hope for America, a hope I never would have imagined I'd have. I mean, dude won in a land slide! How could one candidate represent so much and he never slipped up, never lose focus, never deviated from his message. This man is not only historic but heroic!!!!

I don't know about you but he is "My Hero"!

Class act all the way!

And when he said “I'm your president too, even for all those whose votes I did not earn!” that shit was just another statement to cement the fact that dude is on another level.

He stood in the face of death threats, racism from so many different directions, people questioning his heritage, his religion, his very name and through all that this man never flinched, never lost his focus, never hit back. He just continued to run his flawless campaign. HERO.

He never alienated anyone, and always praised the candidates running against him, many times at the beginning of his own speeches. The whole way he conducted himself set a new standard politically and socially and for that he has my respect.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

This is how I see it today:

My last blog about America I wrote about how disappointed I am in America, but this blog I write about how proud I am of America. A nation that has a long and storied history of racial oppression and bigotry has taking its first step in healing one of many wounds by looking past the policies of the past, by looking past the color of a man’s skin and electing the first Black President of the United States of America. I know so many Americas were tempted to fall back on the old customs and old ways. But on Nov. 4th many Americas put aside their prejudices and proclivity to sameness and took a chance, a chance on Change. And to be honest I did not believe America had grown up enough to take that chance, just 50 years removed from the Jim Crowe laws, from the open Lynching of Blacks, from the Civil Right Movement I just didn’t believe that this nation had moved far enough away from its racist roots. Up until 8pm on Nov.4th I felt like somehow some way racist white America was going to find away to steal this moment from us just as they have stolen everything else from us. But when CNN projected that Obama was the president-elect just as the polls on the west coast were closing (8pm) all that hostility all the disappointment and distrust was released and replace by a feeling of joy, pride and Hope.

This was a defining moment for me as black man for the first time I looked at this nation and said “maybe there’s hope for us all after all”. This is a moment where hope, optimism and equality overtook Racism, and it’s about fuckin’ time! Even if this moment only last 24 hours, I’m going to revel in my naive belief that things are going to be different now but that’s only until reality sinks in I hear a few gun shots from around the corner as the police continue to murder unarmed black men like cattle. This moment will not end racism but this is a shining example that America is not as racist as I thought it was and that’s all the Hope I need. I mean I was just sure that racist white America could not look past their racism to the side once they stepped in the voting booth, boy was I wrong.

No one would have believed America would have voted for a black man in a landslide for President, even one such as Obama who was so qualified, so educated and so dignified. The perception that America was just too over ran with racism and prejudice to vote in a black president has long been America’s calling card and today that perception has changed. Being black in America it’s like you’ve always had to work twice as hard and had to be twice as good as your white counterpart just to get the “chance” to compete and Obama’s campaign was exactly that. Twice as good as good as McCain’s campaign from top to bottom. Obama’s political campaign was near perfect as MSNBC described it, and it had to be.

Condoleezza Rice was absolutely correct when she said: “There was a threshold that we crossed as a nation yesterday”

The social implications of Barack Obama’s presidency as a well educated, dignified, classy black man are endless. He broke a glass ceiling today and raised the bar for all of us, not only people of color but for whites as well. The dignity and respect he exhibited for himself, for the nation’s people and even for his opposing candidates during his campaign should be a lesson to us all and a blue print for a new kind of politics.

What was the most astonishing thing about Obama’s message is that he continues to use the words we, us, ours not me and I when delivering his speeches, attaching a certain degree of accountability to Americans for the fate of this nation.

He established a new template for politics putting the issues above his race, he ran as an American candidate who happens to be black not a black president. He created the template for all future people of color who run for president.

His HUMILITY and strength through all this is to be admired.

I look at all these people who put their prejudice to the side , put their stereotypes to the side, put their fear of the black man and blackness to the side and judge this man off the strength of his own merits and voted for him, within that act I see hope. Hope that people will put their prejudice and stereotypes against me because of the color of my skin to the side and judge me truly off the merit of my character. Hope for all those who would face potential discrimination, this gives us all hope that Americans as a whole can look past their prejudices, judge us my the strength of our character and treat us equality.