Subscribe to this blog's feedAlmost one month ago, Senator Barack Obama became the first African-American president of the United States. When the confirmation came, it was announced by the DJ at the roller skating rink where I go to exercise and de-stress. After coming home to see Senator John McCain leading Obama by five electoral votes, I had to get out of the house. My biggest fear was that there’d be a hijack attempt—another stick-up of democracy which just might give up the goods to a covert America out to keep the status quo in place at all costs.
Thank God it didn’t happen. That night a DJ saved my life—not with a song, but with the announcement that Obama had won. For the first time since I became aware of the level of hypocrisy in this country, I felt that there was still hope for America. The United States had redeemed itself. It had lived up to its potential by showing it could stand for something instead of falling for anything.
At work, management ordered pizza and staffers talked about the possibilities brought by these winds of change. In the conference room that afternoon, people expressed hope and emotions too complex to put on paper.
For me, as the citizen of a country which is my adopted homeland, I was able to resurrect the enthusiasm I felt as a child coming to America. On election night this country proved that democracy can work. It proved that this is the place that my mother described when she talked about her reason for waiting 13 years for her number to come up so she could apply for a visa and book her passage to America. When she sent for me, my sister and brother a few years later, we were ecstatic.
Eventually, however, as we started getting to know the country, the place of opportunity she’d described and which we’d heard so much about became a source of disillusionment. Although there were opportunities to be had, being Black in America had its drawbacks—serious ones.
In the aftermath of the election, I realize that these drawbacks remain. For me the biggest difference is now I have realized a new feeling of hope.
America has always been a place of hope, dating back to the first European immigrants, whether we talk about the early ones from Spain or later on the British, French and Dutch. (Even the earliest Native Americans 20,000 years ago saw opportunity here). It was viewed as a place for each to begin anew, to start over and, as such, was invested with great expectations. However, with great expectations can come great disappointment. Let us not forget that America the dream is also America the people, and often enough dreams and people conflict.
Disappointment comes because ofttimes we invest the dream with unreal expectations and ignore the hard realities. Even the descendants of those who did not journey voluntarily came to dream of a better future. That became a dream deferred for generations. With the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States, I think we come that much closer to the dream of a better future for all Americans and that much closer to a dream fulfilled.