CONGRATS PRESIDENT~ELECT OBAMA, FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA AND OUR NEW FIRST PRINCESSES, MALIA AND SASCHA OBAMA on being the FIRST African American family in the history of this country to lead this country from the highest office in the land!
By now, we all know that Senator Barak Obama is now known as President-Elect Obama! History....WOW....what a tremendous moment for this country. Yes, African Americans have an identifyably deeper reason for this time to be as special as it is. BUT it IS a milestone for this country as a whole.
DREAM REALIZED is a phrase that has come to the forefront of the minds and tongues of people all over the GLOBE, not just here in the United States. Images of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have flooded the visual airways again....portions from his historic "I Have A Dream" speech have begun to flood auditory mediums and flow off of the tongues of many that you otherwise never would have known to have stored in their mental capacity any of the words. On that historic night (11/4/08) I heard young and old men and women pointing to heaven and yelling "We got you Martin!"
I look back on the morning that I arrived at my polling place. Five am in the morning, the line was already about an hour long and we had two hours until the polls even opened. I saw senior citizens with their chairs and bundled up in their coats and covered with blankets. I saw men helping women and women helping other women helping younger women who had come to vote with the children that they had to bring with them. I saw blacks helping whites the abled helping the disabled, I saw that language was not a barrier to friendship and age was no barrier to support....I saw that LOVE really can be universal and the we as a people CAN obliviate "n***er" type behaviors and mentalities from existance. As I look back, I recall having the very distinct feeling of pride in my people and for the most part, in people as a whole. The unity, determination and support that was shown on this past election day is such that rivals the days of the civil rights movement.
BUT (of course there is a 'but'.....lol), here is the REAL challenge...now, we have gotten our candidate into the White House and we have gotten to the day that our people proved that we are able to rise above any stereotypes and century old stigmatisms...for one day...for one cause. What happens now? What happens when the glitz and excitement of having elected the first minority President in our country's history? Do we as a people have what it takes to maximize on that hope, on that strength and drive that was displayed all over this great country of ours on election day? I think that we do! The communal leaders of this country have a remarkable opportunity here. The chance to lead the charge at restoring levels of pride in our communities and in ourselves that seems to have been lost...in a dream that seemingly had faded. Not only is there a remarkable opportunity but an extraordinary responsibility to rise to the call of excellence, the call of simply rising above..of taking the action of the Pheonix and rise out of the ashes of communal and individual loathing that had plagued us as a people over the past 40 immediate years. We have the opportunity here to say YES WE CAN...not just to a President, but to a mother, a father, a husband and/or wife, a son, a daughter, a friend, an enemy....the person that we see everyday when we step in front of our mirror.
Now, we are able to say YES WE DID! The new call is will we be able to say YES WE DID to our families, communities and individual dreams one, two or three years from now.....??
We have made the DREAM true, NOW, we must make sure that our more intimate dreams do NOT become Dreams Deferred......
