By Brandon Whitney
Roughly around the time of my conception Reagan was sworn in as president of the United States. The great deregulator destroyed many of the institutions that made our nation great. He was followed by Bush who continued his work. President Elect Obama represents a return to the use of government for the greater good of all people.
As an African American I am of course happy at the fact that someone of my background is finally in the most powerful position in our nation. But more importantly as an American I am proud to see my nation take a step toward becoming what it aspires to be. For the first time in my life, I feel that the word American describes me, and people like me, without qualification.
I am the grandchild of a sharecropper turned teacher, the descendent of Louisianan Creole slaves, and I am as American as anyone else. The great dream of America, that hard work can get you where you want to go, is a true one. Barack Obama will be a great president with sound and intelligent policies, and this is the most important thing of all. But more than that, Obama is a great symbolic victory for all Americans. Overcoming the racism of the past is not just an African American victory, it’s an American victory.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Player5 // Nov 5, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I can’t help but see the symbolism in Barack Obama being elected President. His father is from Kenya, his mother from Kansas. He captures what we’ve all been wanting … waiting for … a leader who can bring us all together as AMERICANS without focusing on the color of our skin.
2 Good // Nov 6, 2008 at 11:35 am
Now that Obama is president, can we just all go back to being Americans, regardless of the color of our skin? The reason racism exists in this country is because of the segregation created by those in the minority just as much as by everybody else. Things like BET, and yes, myvoicedc.com, are what maintain race lines and racism and segregation. If there was White Entertainment Television or if Fox 5 had a website for the “white voice in DC,” they’d be lambasted as racist. Why is it that the opposite can exist?
Now that a black man is president, I think we can eliminate sites like this one altogether and just be one America. I call on Fox 5 DC to end this segregation and to tear down this website that serves to cater only to certain Americans based on the color of their skin.
I leave you with quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and how they apply to my argument:
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
Let’s break out from the narrow confines of a website for one color, and focus on the nation (or in this case the city) as a whole, regardless of the color of skin.
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
Your myvoicedc.com table is only for blacks. This is wrong. It is racist, and it is segregation.
I would love to see this topic discussed on Fox 5 and on myvoicedc.com. To ignore it is to embrace the continuing schism between races in America.
3 Randy // Nov 7, 2008 at 12:11 am
I heard Obama say that “all Americans” will …
Yet, he stood before 300 million Americans and said he absolutely did not believe in allowing Gay Americans to enjoy the same privileges and human rights that heterosexual Americans not only enjoy, but take for granted. African Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, Caucasian Americans, and Asian Americans can marry whomever they please. However, Homosexual Americans are the “second class Americans” who have the foot of the man on his / her neck and are not entitled to the same quality of life that all of the other Americans enjoy.
Heterosexual married couples enjoy over 1,500 privileges and protections that gay couples cannot enjoy. What? No marriage alowed? Rather, let gays have “domestic partnerships”?
Can we say, ” equal but separate”? How many African Americans would settle for “equal but separate” laws? NONE…and rightfully so.
I hope Obama exceeds my expectations as President of the United States. But neither he, nor any other politician will succeed in getting a single dollar of my hard earned money until he / she stands before America and says there are NO second class Americans and ALL Americans must be allowed to enjoy the same human right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness.
4 Karl Rudder // Nov 7, 2008 at 9:53 am
President Obama will help many learn that the only “race” is the Human Race.
Africa is the Motherland of the Human Race and through the course of millions of years people migrated to other continents and developed new languages and even developed varying complexions of their skin.
The challenge to the American people is now to truly study history and divorce themselves from the racist insistence to brainwash so many of us with “his story”!
5 Karl_is_Wrong // Nov 7, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Karl, Africa is the motherland of the human race? Where on earth did you hear that one? Historically, and even Biblically, the origin of the human race is the Middle East. Iraq to be specific. Which is in southwest Asia, not Africa.
6 Norm // Nov 8, 2008 at 8:50 pm
President elect Obama. What a thought. A man propelled into office by a wave of bigotry. Yes, when 95 percent of a race votes for someone there is an obvious racial background. That doesn’t mean that he will or won’t do a good job, it just means a lot of people voted for him for the wrong reason.
It never seemed to take hold that he never claimed to be black but he never corrected anyone. He learned that in Chicago. He is a politician and thus lying is almost like natural speech.
I was delighted with President elect Obama’s rejection of redefining marriage. Redefining a word doesn’t do anything good, we must work to redefine the attitude and you can’t do that by twisting the religious perception of others. Let no one say our next president is anything like our current one when it comes to intelligence.
All we can do is hope that in four years we are better off than we are today.
7 malcom stroy // Feb 17, 2009 at 5:03 pm
this was a nice and good commentary
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