A New President

I'm writing today my thoughts about our new President-elect, Barack Obama. While I was a Hillary Clinton fan from the beginning, I came to be an Obama supporter with little problem. I had liked Obama but I liked Hillary better and thought we needed a woman's perspective and influence in the White House as Commander-in-Chief.

My 3 grown children were enthusiastic supporters of Barack's from the beginning. I have mentioned before that I am married to an African-American man and have biracial children. But having said that, I don't believe that is the primary reason they supported Obama. He inspired them in a way that I became inspired. His message of change and hope for our country after enduring 8 years of the disastrous Bush administration was what won them over.

So here we are having elected our first multicultural president and I am a little taken aback by a recent email conversation I had with my oldest son. He sent me a link to a web site that was recruiting for anti-Obama supporters. I didn't read the entire site, but I know it was filled with misinformation and hate-mongering. His response was that while Obama's election was a political milestone for race relations, it had set back actual race relations! He doubted the racial climate could ever get better because prejudice and bigotry is too deeply ingrained in our country (not his exact words, I am interpreting here a bit).

I don't agree with him. Yes, I know the day after Obama was elected we all didn't suddenly became colorblind and that hateful, ignorant people still exist. But I also know that a majority of people were able to see the man and what he stood for first and what color he was second. I believe this because of our family's life story. When I first met my husband-to-be at the time, my parents were not exactly thrilled. I remember my mother especially being fairly prejudiced when I was a child. While they never disowned me, I knew that my relationship was very hard for them to accept. I should also mention here that my husband's mother was very much against his seeing a White woman and took much longer to accept our eventual marriage.

However, as time went by, both sides of our families accepted us and changed long held beliefs. Our parents are gone now but I know that color did not define us to them. Our new president has already changed some people's lives and I know there are many more that eventually will see his color as a descriptor of his physical characteristics and nothing more.