It appears the People of the World woke up this morning to find themselves in a happy place. Those are Kenyans celebrating America's Election in the photo. Similar scenes have been happening all over the world.Suddenly there seems to be optimism in the air. I read one quote, from I think it was a person in Iran, that overnight America had become, again, the America the world has long looked up to. Or something like that.
I was surprised by my reaction last night. I stayed up way past my regular bedtime. At 10pm when the polls closed on the West Coast and California was projected for Obama, thus making him our new President, the scene at Grant's Park in Chicago was one of the more amazing things I've watched on TV.
You had Jesse Jackson with tears running down his cheeks. You had Oprah with a look of utter peace and contentment.
As I channel chased after Obama had won I saw many moving moments. Civil Rights hero, now Representative John Lewis, a man who in the 1960s was left beaten and bloody on an Alabama bridge, beaten because he was marching for the right to vote, 40 years later voted for Barack Obama. Rep. Lewis said he really never believed he would live to see what he saw happen last night.
What surprised me about me last night was several times I got, well, sort of choked up. I'd been a tad reluctant about Obama, particularly after his choice of Joe Biden. I would have much preferred someone like Bill Richardson. But last night as that scene unfolded, as I saw how people were affected, and then I sat there feeling affected, realizing this was one of those moments that does not happen all that often, as in being eye witness, via TV, to a historic world-changing moment.
I have long thought that America was better than its reputation regarding race relations. I've long thought the majority of Americans had long ago decided that being racist was pure evil ignorance and that it was just plain wrong. I think the majority of people of all races, religions and ethnic groups are not racist, are embarrassed by those who are and want us all to just get along.
Some are saying that Obama's election proves America has now moved beyond its racist past. I think we moved beyond it long before Obama's election. For a long time now we've seen people like Colin Powell, Condalezza Rice in positions of power. Colin Powell might easily have won this election had he decided to run.
Decades ago there were few people but white people on TV. Now we have diversity on news shows, entertainment shows, all over all media. At one time it was a big deal that Sidney Poitier won an Oscar. At one point it was a big deal that Diahann Carrol played the title role on a sit-com named Julia. A couple decades after that Bill Cosby had the top-rated sit-com showing a very successful, very functional, very funny Black family.
Barack Obama is not the first person with African roots to be embraced by America. Remember the profound affect Alex Haley's Roots had on America when that mini-series aired night after night with the country riveted? We took a great leap forward as a nation after Roots raised America's consciousness of the real history of the Black experience in America.
Remember when America first met the late Barbara Jordan of Texas? Back in the 70s, during the Nixon Impeachment Hearings, she, with a voice of authority that demanded attention said the memorable words, "Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States: "We, the people." It's a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that "We, the people." I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in "We, the people.""
And now, it is totally undeniable, we are all included in "We the People." That's a good thing. For everyone, everywhere.
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