Two days ago, our country elected Senator Barack Obama as our next president. I don't need to retell his story here; anybody who has found this blog stepped here on a sea of news articles, biographies, and stories about who this extraordinary man is, where he came from, and what he wants to do.
But I will repeat our story. We are a country which, for the last eight years, has lived under a sneaking suspicion that the end of the last great superpower was nigh, and that our great nation of freedom, opportunity, and personal liberty was being chipped away by a relentless pattern of human rights violations, wiretapping, misrepresentation and the war it was predicated upon, foolhardy executive power-grabbing, economic tumult, and the discouraging feeling that we, the American people, were having the wool pulled over our collective eyes.
I am tired of going to foreign nations and sheepishly admitting my country of origin, for fear of the string of foreign-language expletives and shameful curses that I would be forced to respond to. I'm tired of defending the liberty that my grandfather fought, shot for and was shot for in light of a bumbling figurehead, a puppet executive, and an inexplicable drain of the very liberties and respect for humanity that our country was built on. I'm tired of being embarrassed by our leader, and by the kind of myopic zealotry and undereducated fundamentalism that came to characterize our twice-elected leader. (For which I am equally to blame...I voted for our current President in both elections...and I am sorry).
...and today, I am breathing with fresh lungs, and a heart beating heavily with hope.
This week, we elected America's first African-American president. To be slightly more broad, we elected America's first non-white president. And I can't imagine being any happier that this person is Barack Obama.
I cannot wait to tell my children that I was there when Barack Obama was elected. I am so thrilled that my children will not grow up in a world where only white males can reach the highest office in the land. I am so proud that the rows of pictures that make up the "wall of presidents" at every grade school, middle school, and high school in the country will now have a dark-skinned face...at least one dark-skinned face, and hopefully many more...for as long as this country is established. My children will never know a world where black men and women have no President who looks like them to aspire to. And the children of black men and women across this country will never know a world where the "white majority" did not trust someone who looked like them to serve as their chief executive and leader.
I truthfully wondered if I would ever see this day. And it is one of the great honors of my life that I got to be a part of electing this man.
I don't know that I believe that God takes a hand, or even necessarily an interest, in the politics of our country. But I will tell you that I thank Him for a race well run, for two candidates that made this country proud throughout...for many of us, proud for this first time in years...and for the gift that is this radical milestone in the development of our young nation. And I hope He hears it.
John McCain is an, without dispute, an American hero, and would likely have made an outstanding leader...I have been proud to support his cause and character in my small social circles where I could throughout his campaign. But this is Barack Obama's time, and this is America's time for Barack Obama. I think maybe we are finally ready. I hope we are.
May God's hand guide you and protect you as you take your first steps of executive leadership, President-Elect Obama. I'm proud to follow.
Peace to you,
Justin