History in the Making

"This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight." - from John McCain's concession speech.

McCain was half right. This election carries special significance for African-Americans and all Americans.

For me, a white American born in the 1980's, it's sometime difficult to imagine how recent slavery existed. On the face of it, slavery seems archaic. A tragic mistake that was corrected along the way. And when we hear about genocide happening today elsewhere in the world, it almost seems preposterous. This is 2008.

And yet, the history of the United States is a short one. 232 years is a drop in the bucket on the timeline of human history.

9,000 years ago humans invented metalworking, maps, and dental drills.
7,000 years ago Egypt enjoyed beer and bread, Mesopotamians invented the wheel and axle, and Scandinavians created ice skates.
3,000 years ago Romans were performing cataract surgeries and Indians were getting cosmetic surgery.

And eleven score and twelve years ago, the United States of America declared it's independence, leading with the bold statement that all men are created equal. Of course, eleven years later at the Constitution Convention in Philadelphia, it was agreed that a slave was to be counted as 3/5 of a man. In 1790, 18 percent of the people in America were slaves.

Slavery existed long enough to divide the United. It was abolished in 1865. It took eleven months to get three-fourths of the country to ratify the 13th Amendment. As for Kentucky and Mississippi, they eventually ratified it as well. In 1976 and 1995, respectively.

143 years ago slavery was no longer legal in America. Not that long ago, considering a 114-year old American cast her vote on Tuesday. Her parents were slaves.

And while the 15th Amendment declared that a citizen's race could not disqualify them from voting, the story of racial discrimination didn't end there. Jim Crow laws continued segregation in public facilities, poll taxes and other ways to deny voting rights, and an overall era of racism and unequal rights. It wasn't until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the spirit of the 15th Amendment was fully realized.

Barack Obama was born in 1961.

When he was born, not only could his mother not envision that one day a black man could become president, she couldn't yet promise him that he would be able to vote for president.

My parents were born in the 1940's. I am literally one generation away from an era before equal civil rights. To think that my grandfather who lived through the Great Depression, and admitted that he made his first black friend through my mother within the last ten years, cast his vote for an African-American on Tuesday is simply remarkable.

Wednesday morning, November 5th, I walked to work like I do everyday. And I stopped a picked up a copy of the free Red Eye paper from the Chicago Tribune. And a block later I saw a mom and three young boys getting their copies of the Red Eye. They were three black boys probably between the ages of 4 and 8. And I realized that this is their first election memory.

One day they will fully appreciate that history was made. But it's amazing that boys and girls of all races will have this as their first election memory. They will never be shackled with the idea that the highest office in the country is reserved only for white people. When their parents tell them that they can be whatever they want to be when they grow up, it will not be ridiculous for them to think they could reach the highest position in whatever field they want.

And then later that day, my mom said something interesting to me. She said that she wished that the media would stop talking about how he is the first black president. I thought to myself how ridiculous it would be to not adequately cover this historic moment. But she continued to say that she hoped the media would talk about how after 8 years of Bush, we finally have a president who is beyond intelligent. That she didn't care at all about Obama's race, and that she was thrilled to have this man in the White House for who he is.

And I think that it should not be overlooked that the reason Obama was able to capture so many voters had little to do with the color of his skin and everything to do with what he said, the plans he presented, and how he acted in the face of a crisis. (You could make the argument that anyone who voted for or against him based on race, was likely to vote Democratic or Republican respectively, anyways. And that the number of independents that voted based on race, was likely split as well.)

Furthermore, I think that it's all the more reason to celebrate the historic nature of this outcome, because of his character. If, hypothetically John Edwards had become president and selected a token black man who wasn't ready for a VP, and then something happened to Edwards, that would still have produced this nation's first black president. While a milestone, it wouldn't be anything to get excited about.

After September 11, 2001, I experienced a strong sense of unity. Not that I wasn't proud, but it was mostly a feeling of togetherness an united strength.

On November 4th, 2008, I felt humbled, privileged and proud to be an American.

I'll end with words that were spoken twenty years before I was born, by a man standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial:

Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning...I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.