JOY

With Barack Obama's victory in the Presidential election of 2008, we the people of the United States can rejoice at having once again fulfilled our potential to become "a more perfect union," this time in a HUGE way, with the election of a black man to the Presidency of the United States. And yet this milestone, which has inspired joy in so many, has also, somewhat understandably, aroused apprehension among those who voted against Obama.

To be happy that an African American won the election is not an indictment of or accusation against those who did not vote for him. Nor is it a statement that his supporters voted *for* him because of his race.

After 372 years of subjugation of people of color in America and 232 years where only Caucasians have held the office of the US Presidency, to not recognize the quantum leap forward that Obama's election represents is to dismiss a key moment when we as a society realized the true potential and promise of our founding principles.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal....

What is significant, indeed crucial, is that Obama himself did not run on race. He spoke of race only when absolutely pushed to the wall, when the Hillary campaign started blasting him on his association with Reverend Wright -- a strategy which sought to arouse and exploit fears among white people that Obama conformed to the stereotype of "the Angry Black Man."

That was the situation that prompted Obama to write and deliver his speech on race:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/obama-race-speech-read-th_n_92077.html


When the McCain campaign, particularly through Palin, started rousing fears with their accusations that Obama was "palling around with terrorists," and Representative John Lewis, a hero of the Civil Rights Movement, -- a man who had personally witnessed the church burnings, the fire hoses, the murders of Goodman, Scherner and Cheney, as well as the murders of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King -- called the McCain administration out on these tactics, the Obama campaign distanced themselves from Lewis' statements, expressly rebuking the association Lewis had made between John McCain and George Wallace.

The Obama campaign statement pulled the emphasis of the discussion away from race and back towards a more neutral critique of "angry divisive rhetoric" and then, even more notably, they moved the message back into the "positive" column, by stating the need for unity "a time of crisis when we desperately need to come together."

I think it was this constant, steady, consistent and *color-blind* emphasis on unity and the positive that won over the Independents to Obama's side and ultimately led to his victory in this election, not to mention the intense affection of all those who gravitated to his cause.

I think the more people saw and really got to know Obama, the more they liked him and saw that, even though he was relatively inexperienced in terms of years spent in public service at the national level or in an executive capacity, he had the brilliant mind, judgment and temperament to be an outstanding chief executive. He was the most qualified candidate for the job.

And then there was that breakthrough....