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President Obama

Years ago, when we drove cross-country to our new home in Massachusetts, JW and I stopped at the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices in Minneapolis. We each got a phrenology reading from a contraption that poked our heads with metal prongs and spat out a list of attributes. Mine said -- accurately, I think -- that I had great rhythm, logic, and Familial Love, but was deficient in Hope and Faith.

For weeks now, I've seen the polls and the news stories, heard friends say with mounting excitement, "We're going to win!" I kept cautioning them, "Let's not get too optimistic here. It's still close." Last night I sat there watching the networks call state after state for Obama. I couldn't bring myself to believe it. I went to bed right before 11, probably five minutes before they called the election, figuring that the west coast polls hadn't closed yet and I was too tired to stay up.

This morning, when I saw the headline, I cried. I watched the campaign speech as K pointed at the screen saying, "Obaba! Obaba!" "Do you know who that is?" I said. "He's going to be the president! Can you say president?"

We talked to K about the election yesterday while we got ready to go out and vote. "Do you want to be president one day, K?" asked JW. "Come on," I said without thinking. "Do you really think people will vote for someone of mixed race with a name they can't pronounce?" JW raised an eyebrow at me. "Oh!" I said.

I'm a glass half full kind of person. I always thought that as long as I worked hard, I could achieve my goals. But I would never admit to myself that those goals were limited, that deep down I didn't really believe it when my parents said I could do anything. Honestly, they didn't believe it either. I remember my mom talking about the problems she faced with the old boys' network at work, and how we could never truly be friends with white people because they could never understand us. I remember the playground taunts when I was a kid, and the research that came out just in the past few years about how people with ethnic names are less likely to get jobs.

But today, all the papers say President OBAMA. Not President Johnson, or Jackson, or Adams. Not President Clinton, Bush, or Reagan. O-BA-MA.

As a person with brown skin, a funny name, and a multiracial child, today I feel my Hope and Faith rising. Today I really DO believe, for the first time in my life, my kids could grow up to be president one day. Now I understand the campaign slogan: YES WE CAN!

Full post as published by Magic Cookie on November 05, 2008 (boomark / email).