Nobody could look into the faces of voters — black and white — standing patiently in long lines to vote Nov. 4 and not see how much this election meant to them. The hopes and fears of all the years were met in him that night.
They didn’t care much about Obama’s policies. He represented the realization of our vaunted equality of opportunity. He is the embodiment of the aspirations Americans hold dear but have never completely realized. For all the give-away programs and special benefits for minorities, they never quite made it into the mainstream. The special treatment given to minorities was an embarrassment to us all. It’s been a constant reminder they needed special help. That somehow they were not good enough to make it on their own.
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But transcending politics that morning after, voices are less shrill, commentators more thoughtful, and the nation now realizes that a social tsunami had occurred without violence, without the kind of disorder we have seen too many times in social confrontations. But this was no confrontation.
Virtually no one objected to Obama because he is black. They couldn’t have because if everyone had voted according to their own race, Obama wouldn’t have won. Obviously, there was strong support from white voters to push Obama to victory. Whites from every corner of this nation. Whites from from every walk of life from bluebloods in Manhattan and San Francisco to blue collar workers in the heartland. This victory was a coming together.
Obama’s first call might be heard as a clarion to today’s black youth: join the country, be real. At last, it’s respectable for black people to be part of the establishment. So much will be expected of them.
In this election we have buried deep and permanently, the derogation against success as “acting white.” When the president of the United States is a black person, no longer can success be equated with acting white. The day has come when success has no color. The day has at last arrived when persons will be judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin. It may take a while for the magnitude of this change to sink in, but it’s true. All Americans can feel the pride.
During the campaign, Obama’s plans to change the country, to change the world, sounded like ridiculous braggadocio. I never understood what he meant by all that and imagined the worst. But now I get it.
I look at the faces of people today and realize Obama’s election has changed the nation. It has changed the world. The change has already taken place. Now minorities know it’s not just talk. This is an exceptional country that offers opportunity for everyone.
Now I realize what happened. It was just last week, this nation rose up to live out the true meaning of its creed.
Contact Lionel Waxman at territorial@waxmanmedia.com or visit his website: www.waxmanmedia.com. Lionel Waxman’s Flashpoint commentaries are published in The Daily Territorial.
Comments
josh wrote on Nov 15, 2008 11:50 AM:
HELLO wrote on Nov 9, 2008 5:52 PM:
Paola Totaro| November 10, 2008
OSAMA bin Laden is planning an attack against the United States that will "outdo by far" September 11, an Arab newspaper in London has reported.
And according to a former senior
Yemeni al-Qaeda operative, the terrorist organisation has entered a "positive phase", reinforcing specific training camps around the world that will lead the next "wave of action" against the West.
The warning, on the front page of an Arabic newspaper published in London, Al-
Quds Al-Arabi— and widely reported in the major Italian papers — quotes a person described as being "very close to al-Qaeda" in Yemen.
The paper is edited by
Abdel al-Bari Atwan, who is said to be the last journalist to interview Osama bin Laden in 1996. According to the report, bin Laden is himself closely following preparations for an attack against the US and aims to "change the face of world politics and economics". The operative is quoted as saying that "this will be shown by the fact that we now control a major part of the south of Somalia".
The ex-operative says he remains in contact with current chiefs of the organisation in Yemen and that only six months ago bin Laden had sent a message to all
jihad cells in the Arab world which asked them not to interact with their governments or local political parties and to deny any request for mediation or formal talks.
The source also said that during the next few days the terrorist organisation may send a sign of its violent intentions.
The warning has emerged at the same time as publication of a report leaked to The Telegraph newspaper which reveals that a document drawn up by the intelligence branch of the Ministry of Defence says that thousands of extremists are active in the UK.
The document says the operatives are predominantly UK-born and aged between 18 and 30. Many are believed to have been trained in overseas terrorist camps.
Security officials, The Telegraph reports, are convinced
al-Qaeda cells will attempt another "spectacular" inside the UK with major transport centres, such as airports and train stations, the most likely targets. Other targets include the Houses of Parliament, Whitehall and Buckingham and St James' palaces, with the threat level described as " "