January 20, 2009

hether you voted for him or not, whether you like him or not, you have to agree that there is alot of history being made, as well as alot of history being revisited today. 

I feel funny about seeing all the media coverage about him being the first black man being in the presidential spot (and frankly, he is only half black.. so we could also say we have a half white person in the office). I am probably one of the most colour blind people there is. If it actually occurs to me that my friend is another race and skin colour, I usually say "oh yeah".. and usually promptly forget. I have no idea what most of my friends' eye colors are either. It is not as I am not caring, it is as I am more interested in the interior of the person.. the way they are, what makes them tick, how they carry themselves and how they treat others over what they look like. If you are president,  do not care what your hair colour is, or if you even have hair for that matter, what your eye colour is, your religion, if you eat brussels sprouts or not...as long as you can do the job you were hired to do. 

However, on the other side, I am happy that someone who is not 100% white is in the 'big seat'.. (sure Morgan Freeman has had the position, but only for 2 hours at a time in the movies).  I have seen how 'minorities' have been treated. My own grandmother was born on a reservation. I live in an area where there is a large native and East Indian population and none of the culture are side-by-side often. 

As a Caucasian I was once at an event where I was the only non-Hispanic out of hundreds and hundreds of people and I am very glad I was there with my male friend from Mexico. Even so, it was very uncomfortable. I was met with looks of suspicion with my presence; looks of 'hatred'(?) with me being with my male friend (who was just a friend); looks of not wanting me there as I was invading them. I knew I would be only in that situation for a couple hours, so I could shrug it off (with some difficulty), but I do not know how I would have been able to live with that day-after-day as many people of different races or religions have to all around the world. However, I am very happy that I had that experience to 'walk in someone else's shoes',  albeit for a very short time , but saddened me that it happens to people endlessly. 

From what I see of people's reactions, the new president is a sense of hope. The poor man has a very large image to live up to, but I think he is game for the task. Not just a new hope in fixing the mess the States are in, but also socially.

It has also been a history lesson in the last few days of the past from Abraham Lincoln, to Martin Luther King Jr., Harold George Bellefonte, Jr., Sir Sidney Poitier and many others. People who are either deceased or did things before I was born, so never knew. 

I do not believe that he is the person to 'fix' it all, but I do believe that he can be the person who gets everyone enthused enough, to get everyone motivated enough, to move all in the same direction for the greater good of everyone. I believe he will. 

I hear little kids saying that they now believe that they can indeed become anything that they want to become. That we can indeed become the architect of our own destinies. Let it be so.

If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.
 ~ Lin Yutang

We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
~Barack Obama