Reflections
I wish you could have been here. Tuesday night will be one of the fondest memories of my life, a night I'll never forget. I have been a Barack Obama supporter and believer in his message and politics from the beginning - even since freshman year, before he even announced his candidacy. He is a truly intelligent, gifted, and genuine politician. I have believed that he would be an extraordinary President of the United States when almost no one else thought he'd be able to beat Hilary Clinton or John Edwards in a primary, much less the Republican nominee.
And here we are. And yes we can.
Wacthing the results come in, time after time, the "swing states" going blue - states we knew McCain had only little chance of winning - it still felt unreal. Like it couldn't really be happening. Like it was too good to be true. Because now that I really think about it, people of our generation have never really been able to be happy with our president, to be excited about the democratic process. We've had Bush for the lst 8 years, and whether or not you support him now or supported him back then, I think it would be a far stretch to say that he was the candidate of the youth, that he had our support. And before that, when we were just in elementary school - Clinton, and the whole sex scandal. We were too young to understand his politics, but we learned not to expect too much from our president.
My faith in the democratic process - in the power of grassroots movements, the voice of the people - was born in the process. I really don't think I actually believed movements like ours could actually work, until now. Like my activism, desire to end the war, participation in grassroots movements for economic justice in the world, the closure of the School of the Americas, and end to the unjust occupation of Iraq and Palestine - these are all things I care deeply about, but I never really thought I had much say in the matter.
But now, I don't know. Things just feel so different. Barack's campaign has never really been about him, but about us. The people. WE have funded his campign, wholely (a risky move, but one that gave his campaign and election so much more legitmacy! what a brilliant, brave, right thing to do!). It has been about our voices calling for change.
And when the news broke that, yes, finally, it's true, REALLY - Barack Obama, a black man, the son of a Kenyan, raised by his grandmother - will be the next President of our country, I cannot explain to you the emotions that we all felt. There was at first just yelling and pure joy! We won! And then there was disbelief - did this just happen? can this be true? Then it sunk in a little more, and I could not contain my excitement. A bunch of my friends and I were watching the results at the house of our friends who live just off campus, and we ran outside into the street, where a lot of other people were running around, honking their car horns, screaming out of their windows. We just joined the chorus. We RAN down Commonwealth Avenue, the main street next to campus that goes right into the heart of downtown Boston, joined the yelling, and the noise, and the joy. We caught the bus to the local bar just off campus, and everyone on the bus had the same idea. This just happened. We are celebrating! Total strangers joined together in our excitement, chanting YES WE CAN! We JUST DID! We crammed ourselves into the bar where hundreds of BC students could NOT get the smiles off their faces.
And his acceptance speech. Beautiful. I cried. He is MY president.
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation -
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom -
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness -
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.
We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics...they will only grow louder and more dissonant ........... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea --
Yes. We. Can.
And here we are. And yes we can.
Wacthing the results come in, time after time, the "swing states" going blue - states we knew McCain had only little chance of winning - it still felt unreal. Like it couldn't really be happening. Like it was too good to be true. Because now that I really think about it, people of our generation have never really been able to be happy with our president, to be excited about the democratic process. We've had Bush for the lst 8 years, and whether or not you support him now or supported him back then, I think it would be a far stretch to say that he was the candidate of the youth, that he had our support. And before that, when we were just in elementary school - Clinton, and the whole sex scandal. We were too young to understand his politics, but we learned not to expect too much from our president.
My faith in the democratic process - in the power of grassroots movements, the voice of the people - was born in the process. I really don't think I actually believed movements like ours could actually work, until now. Like my activism, desire to end the war, participation in grassroots movements for economic justice in the world, the closure of the School of the Americas, and end to the unjust occupation of Iraq and Palestine - these are all things I care deeply about, but I never really thought I had much say in the matter.
But now, I don't know. Things just feel so different. Barack's campaign has never really been about him, but about us. The people. WE have funded his campign, wholely (a risky move, but one that gave his campaign and election so much more legitmacy! what a brilliant, brave, right thing to do!). It has been about our voices calling for change.
And when the news broke that, yes, finally, it's true, REALLY - Barack Obama, a black man, the son of a Kenyan, raised by his grandmother - will be the next President of our country, I cannot explain to you the emotions that we all felt. There was at first just yelling and pure joy! We won! And then there was disbelief - did this just happen? can this be true? Then it sunk in a little more, and I could not contain my excitement. A bunch of my friends and I were watching the results at the house of our friends who live just off campus, and we ran outside into the street, where a lot of other people were running around, honking their car horns, screaming out of their windows. We just joined the chorus. We RAN down Commonwealth Avenue, the main street next to campus that goes right into the heart of downtown Boston, joined the yelling, and the noise, and the joy. We caught the bus to the local bar just off campus, and everyone on the bus had the same idea. This just happened. We are celebrating! Total strangers joined together in our excitement, chanting YES WE CAN! We JUST DID! We crammed ourselves into the bar where hundreds of BC students could NOT get the smiles off their faces.
And his acceptance speech. Beautiful. I cried. He is MY president.
Click to viewIt was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation -
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom -
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness -
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.
We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics...they will only grow louder and more dissonant ........... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea --
Yes. We. Can.