Courtney

That Tuesday afternoon, I had the experience , while putting out campaign lit and canvassing, of a hulking head-shaved thug following me and acting in a distinctly threatening manner. I kept going. He tried to prevent me from going into and leaving dirt-poor, unlit public housing buildings, harassing me all the way. I kept going. Ya don’t scare me, Cracker….I can hardly see you.
On my way back to the campaign office, shaky and hoping he didn’t get my license plate number, I felt ashamed for being afraid, but I also thought, John Lewis wouldn’t be afraid, or at least he wouldn’t have stopped. And neither did I. I might be scared, but I did keep going.
They said at the office that the numbers for our pivotal and purple state were bad; I went home praying. This election has just about killed me with anxiety and it felt like I might not make it through the final hours.
I’ve been writing political commentaries and outright propaganda nearly every day, gaining hope by watching the numbers but still too afraid to feel anything like confidence.

When they called Pennsylvania, I knew instantly what that meant; a primal shout came up and out of my chest, I started sobbing, I barely stopped all night. This is REAL.

WE have taken OUR country back; WE have done it together.
Amazing, amazing grace.

This particular and exceptional person has gained the force of the people’s will at his back because of his clear fineness of purpose, because he has communicated to enough of us that this nation is ours and we CAN have it back for our own governance………and we actually did it. We saw the true leader, the one in whose hands and mind and heart we could safely place our country’s future guidance and we insisted to the many uncertain fearful souls that it must be so.

I still cry a little every day; I see that family, that double-Harvard Law-incredibly-glamorous couple going to the White House, hear the latest updates on who’s being considered for which post and while I continue talking to friends around the country and from various nations and I am still almost unbelieving. We came so terribly close these last few years, to losing or handing over what is the foundational strength of our nation, I can hardly let out that breath of relief.

My belief is that many more of us are going to be obligated to become more involved in our local and national governance that we have been since probably the 18th century; I hope my child will be able to experience the fruits of our striving.

I am more than proud of us, I am profoundly and endlessly grateful.

Growning up (I’m now 42), I thought we’d elect a black man before a white woman, and I thought it would be sometime in my lifetime, but I didn’t expect it so soon. I figured, if we elected GWB not just once, but twice, that the same country would not be able to turn around and elect BHO. I avoided checking the election returns until very late in the evening, convinced that he would have lost, that people would have lost their nerve in the voting booth.

But, he won! And I, as a single white adoptive mom of a black girl, had tears in my eyes. Couldn’t get to sleep for hours, thinking about how life will be fundamentally different now. My Hannah is only 2, and she will grow up never having known that ceiling. (I remember how incredulous my mother was when I told her I never was afraid that the Soviets would bomb us. She grew up with “Duck and Cover” and just couldn’t imagine my not being afraid of nuclear attack.)

Three cheers for Barak Obama! And a thousand cheers for his mother and grandparents, for raising such an intelligent, thoughtful, collaborative, caring, and wise individual.

Over my lifetime, our culture has steadily grown more coarse. This is true in the white community in spades (c.f. Brittney Spears), but even more so in the Black communitiy. Somehow, we’ve lost the ability to raise our children to respect each other and to respect their elders. Perhaps this ties in with the loss of so many manufacturing jobs, so that an uneducated man can no longer support a family. Whatever the source, we’ve redefined our culture to praise the crass and the crude, and abhor the intelligent. (Makes me think of the smart black kids in my Washington, DC, high school who were called Oreos.)

With the Obamas in the White House, we will have a new Black “character” on TV every week, one who is real, intelligent and well-spoken. It’s not just that we all feel at home in our own country again, but that the next generation — Black, white, yellow, red — will grow up seeing that role model. How many of our children will strive to be intelligent and well-spoken because of his example?

Hope, indeed.

Thank you.

Its a new day!