The Journey

This morning I slept for 10 whole hours. It's been a long while since I've gotten a peaceful night's sleep. When I woke up, I was startled that I'd slept so well and for so long. And then, suddenly, my grogginess cleared and I instantly knew the reason.

Barack Obama has been elected 44th President of the United States.

I hadn't realized how anxious I'd been about this election until I woke up this morning and missed the ever-present uneasiness that had occupied my mind for all those months.

It all started more than a year ago when I was channel surfing and happened upon C-Span. They were showing an Obama rally. I was immediately taken by the things this man was saying. It was as if he had seen into my thoughts, arranged them in eloquent succession, and validated them by speaking them to that large crowd.

Who was this guy? The bottom of the screen read "Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill". I remembered him. He's the guy that wrote those books, the best sellers I had been meaning to read. And I think he's on MySpace. He's running for President?

Not only did I go to the bookstore the next day, I began actually searching for interviews and speeches and added him as a friend on MySpace. It didn't take me long to realize that this man should be President.

I believed he should be President, but I didn't believe he could be President. I even resorted to the old, long-held justification that if he actually became President I would fear for his safety. Then Barack Obama appeared on the Tavis Smiley show. He stated that people shouldn't be so concerned for his safety that they don't vote for him. He said he had considered and discussed the dangers with his family, and they had all decided that this was something he needed to do. Since that was my last obstacle, I threw my support behind Obama.

Now, Tavis Smiley had asked Barack if he really thought he had any chance of becoming the Democratic nominee when he was trailing so far behind in the polls. He said he did, and that he was confident once he made his case to the masses they would vote for him. I chuckled. Did he really believe that? Naw, I concluded, but he has to act like he does. So, while he had my support, I wasn't very confident that anything would come of his candidacy.

A couple months later, during a telephone conversation with my mother, all hell broke loose. My mother, who was supporting Hillary Clinton at the time, said she was certain that I, too, was behind Hillary. I told her that I, in fact, was not. I said Barack was my guy. She went ballistic on me, and gave me every argument as to why I should support Hillary over Obama. I successfully rebutted each one. Then she said that, even if Obama were to win the party nom, there was no way he could get enough votes to win the general election. I agreed with that assessment, so she asked why I would waste my vote on someone who couldn't win. My answer was simple: Because I have to.

And I did have to because I believed in this man wholeheartedly. Ordinarily I hate politics, so I necessarily abhor politicians. But there was something different about this one. I felt like he understood what it was like to be me on a basic level. I felt his sincerity.

So I told my mother that Barack had my support, but that I'd end up voting for Hillary in the general election anyway. I had nothing against her. I just didn't feel her the way I did him. My mother got angry, didn't speak to me for two weeks, and -- although I can't prove it -- I think she briefly wrote me out of her will.

Then Obama won the Iowa caucuses and people really started paying attention to him, including my mother. My mother, a Texas resident, did cast her vote for Hillary, but she confided in me several weeks later that she wished she'd had that vote back. She now saw in Barack what I saw in him.

Ever since the Iowa caucuses, when it became clear that there was a real chance he could win the party nom, I've been anxious. Anxious for each caucus and primary result, for him to secure the nomination, for the convention, for the general election. I didn't even know I was so wound up until this morning when suddenly I wasn't.

I know that African-Americans everywhere are rejoicing in the history that is the first African-American to ever get elected to the highest office in our land. My mother called me in tears last night when they called the election for Obama, because she grew up in the Jim Crow south, where she wasn't allowed to go to school with Whites or even use the same bathrooms. She never thought she'd see this in her lifetime and was overcome by the moment. I understand that, and, though I never had to deal with Jim Crow, I felt every bit of that history last night.

But it was deeper than even that for me. For once in the past 8 years, the issues actually mattered. So much so that this country was able to look beyond its prejudices and elect the best person for the job.

And so I slept.

But this nation still has a long way to go. Last night was not a victory against prejudice and bigotry, as some have proclaimed. Instead, for a large group of people, it was bittersweet. As this country showed it could look past a history of preconceived notions about one group of people, it also demonstrated, at least in those states that denied gay couples the right to marry (especially in progressive California), that it is still willing to justify discrimination against another group.

So today we celebrate President-Elect Barack Obama. But there is clearly still work to be done. Our journey continues.

-e

p.s. Here are more photos from last night's acceptance speech: