(no subject)
Oh. My. God.
I think I actually teared up.
We WON.
I spent the countdown across the street at a cafe packed with supporters, in the company of good friends. Everyone cheered at the screen when a new state kicked over to Obama. We ate cake. We drank beer.
At the end of the night I drove a few of my friends home, and after dropping off the last one, I had to cross Kirkwood -- the main drag here in town -- to get back home. There were people outside, shouting, and I heard a flute from somewhere. It was only as I crossed the street and looked back in my sideview mirror that I realised that the flute was being played by Ras Anebana, a friend of mine from my capoeira group. He, and a bunch of other people, were literally dancing on the street corner.
I parked my car back at my lot and decided to put off sleep a little longer to walk back to Kirkwood and say hi to him. As it turned out, he was with a couple of my friends from capoeira, all of them playing a djembe and the flute and smoking a lot of weed and chanting "Yes we can!" and "Si se puede!" at every passing car. Several of them are Rastafarians, so you can imagine how they must be feeling. We all hugged and cheered.
I honestly can't believe this.
People: remember where you were today. Buy a copy of tomorrow's newspaper and save it. Today is historic. Just like our parents who remember where they were when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, or when the Berlin Wall fell, or when Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the Mall, we will be telling our grandchildren about where we were today and the things we did to make this happen. There will be high schools and freeways and maybe even a holiday named after Obama one day.
I've been defensive of this country in response to people who have made xenophobic or prejudicial assumptions about it when I was living overseas, but I have never, before today, felt proud to be American. Right now, riding the high of this victory, I can honestly say is the first time in my entire life that I find myself thinking, maybe this country can become something I can believe in, after all.
Before anyone jumps on me for melodrama: contrary to what many of you may think, I don't actually think that Obama is the way, the truth, and the light of American politics. I just think he's as close as we're likely to get right now. And my present optimism comes in small part because I think he has the potential to do great things as President, but even more because until I watched it happen, I never, ever would have believed that this country was ready to elect him.
This may sound incredibly cheesy, but for right now, hope really is the word.
I think I actually teared up.
We WON.
I spent the countdown across the street at a cafe packed with supporters, in the company of good friends. Everyone cheered at the screen when a new state kicked over to Obama. We ate cake. We drank beer.
At the end of the night I drove a few of my friends home, and after dropping off the last one, I had to cross Kirkwood -- the main drag here in town -- to get back home. There were people outside, shouting, and I heard a flute from somewhere. It was only as I crossed the street and looked back in my sideview mirror that I realised that the flute was being played by Ras Anebana, a friend of mine from my capoeira group. He, and a bunch of other people, were literally dancing on the street corner.
I parked my car back at my lot and decided to put off sleep a little longer to walk back to Kirkwood and say hi to him. As it turned out, he was with a couple of my friends from capoeira, all of them playing a djembe and the flute and smoking a lot of weed and chanting "Yes we can!" and "Si se puede!" at every passing car. Several of them are Rastafarians, so you can imagine how they must be feeling. We all hugged and cheered.
I honestly can't believe this.
People: remember where you were today. Buy a copy of tomorrow's newspaper and save it. Today is historic. Just like our parents who remember where they were when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, or when the Berlin Wall fell, or when Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the Mall, we will be telling our grandchildren about where we were today and the things we did to make this happen. There will be high schools and freeways and maybe even a holiday named after Obama one day.
I've been defensive of this country in response to people who have made xenophobic or prejudicial assumptions about it when I was living overseas, but I have never, before today, felt proud to be American. Right now, riding the high of this victory, I can honestly say is the first time in my entire life that I find myself thinking, maybe this country can become something I can believe in, after all.
Before anyone jumps on me for melodrama: contrary to what many of you may think, I don't actually think that Obama is the way, the truth, and the light of American politics. I just think he's as close as we're likely to get right now. And my present optimism comes in small part because I think he has the potential to do great things as President, but even more because until I watched it happen, I never, ever would have believed that this country was ready to elect him.
This may sound incredibly cheesy, but for right now, hope really is the word.