"America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.... Our fate is to become one, and yet many. This is not prophecy, but description."
~Ralph Ellison
From Invisible Man
1953
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I understand that this is not the time nor the place to voice my concerns about the American electoral system, nor to voice my support for the more intelligent, fair, and prudent policies of "radicals" like Rep. Cynthia McKinney and Ms. Rosa Clemete over the more moderate opinions of President-Elect Barack Obama. I understand that this is not the proper time because this is an astounding day for this nation and for the world, and that the man set to become the 44th president of these United States is a truly great and inspirational man.
It is not my intention to waste the time and computer space attempting to convince anyone of the greatness of out newest President-Elect, nor do I intend to expend any energy begging the fickle and often irrational people of this country to support the future of President-Elect Obama.
But I will say one thing.
America has now looked itself in the mirror and begun to scrape away the grime coating its glorious, multi-colored face. And this is something I will celebrate internally, with the utmost respect and reverence for the struggle of a nation remembering the shackles, the hoses, the dogs, the bullets, the shouting, the weeping, and the prayerful silence of a people repressed and maimed by the evils of the United States of America. For there are people who need not imagine the grief of a culture chained and mutilated by the devilish horrors of slavery. There are people who need not rely on the descriptions of others to feel the weight of a hundred pounds of water striking the chests and arms of a proud people at 300 hundred miles an hour. There are people who need not research the mourning of a broken race after American bullets shattered the lives of great men as they spoke from the pulpit and pedestal. And there are people who need not struggle to remember the power and dignity that comes from raising a fist in the frigid air of Chicago, the salty haze of San Francisco, the pavement-steam of Los Angeles, the saturated smoke of Philadelphia, or the angry cold of New York to declare "I am a human being. And my life has meaning!". These people feel the struggle every day as they breathe and eat and pray and fuck and laugh and cry and kiss their husbands and wives and children. This is my America. And I hope that soon I will have earned the trust and respect that my fathers have trampled upon, and I will be welcome to stand with my America and lift my pampered fist in the air as my mouth opens and my throat vibrates in song as I am introduced to something altogether foreign to me. Patriotism.
[UPDATE]
If I may be forgiven a moment of presumption and possible arrogance, I will say one more thing in an attempt to quiet the irrational and racist meanderings of the bitter minority still stinging from the loss of Senator John McCain. Consider this what my cowardice and weakness prevent me from saying in person.
The people of the United States of America did not vote for Senator Barack Obama simply because he is a black man. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he understands their struggles and their hardships and their challenges. And because these struggles are, in fact, his own. The people of this country voted for Barack Obama because he was a poor black child born to a white mother and an African father, and raised in a single parent home. He understands that struggle. The people of this country voted for Barack Obama because his father was an immigrant. He understands that struggle. The people of this country voted for Barack Obama because he lifted himself out of poverty and transcended the stigma of his race to attend some of the finest schools in the world. He understands that struggle. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he spent his youth organizing in the poorest parts of one of America's poorest cities, working to help families overcome the hardships of American inner cities. He understands that struggle. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he spent years teaching Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago. He understands the act of teaching, and he understands the struggle of America's teachers. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he spent his time in the Illinois legislature and in the United States Senate leading with dignity and working to cross party lines for the people he represented. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he understands their America, the America marred by a history of hate and oppression, the America in which poor black youth must struggle against the extreme hardship of their condition, the America in which people feel unsafe in their own homes and unwelcome in their own nation. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he understands their America, their struggle. The color of his skin is merely evidence of his own struggle.
To say that a citizen of the United States of America, black of white, voted for Obama simply for the novelty of electing a black man, simply for some kind of quirky pleasure derived from observing the unusual, is to label a great man like the President-Elect a mere puppet, and the millions of voters who cast their ballot for him as mere puppeteers, clueless Americans meandering frivolously through this enormous decision. And that is nothing short of close-minded and naive.
It is, in fact, racist. In saying that the President-Elect earned his votes simply through the color of his skin, you have reduced Barack Obama to nothing more than an unthinking, inanimate symbol of his race, and robbed his accomplishments of their vitality and enormity. And that is the essence of American racism-- the robbery of meaning and importance based on racial heritage.
