Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Yes We Can

Or so they chant. And now we get to find out what they will actually do. I can't say as I'm excited about it, but at least it's finally happening. I was getting tired of people talking about Obama as if he was already functioning as the President when he wasn't. We didn't really watch much of the inauguration. I know I'll probably get some flames for this, but I'm having a hard time feeling the historic sense of it. I know there is this sense that we elected a black president for the first time (isn't Obama actually half-white?), but I don't really see it as the fulfillment of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Didn't he say he longed for the day his children would be judged by the "content of their character and not the color of their skin"? Doesn't this mean we will someday be talking about something other than skin color? I do think that was accomplished in some sense, as I know many, many people, myself included, weren't thinking skin color when we voted. Maybe it's because I was born after the civil rights movement that I'm not really clued in on this. I didn't grow up being taught one skin color was better than another. I also, thankfully, didn't witness segregation or the intense prejudice that was once the norm. So maybe this is an historic day, but I still didn't watch the inauguration, just as I have never watched one in the past. To me, it's just the final campaign speech and an excuse to hold a big party. It's what happens after all that hoopla that will have my attention.

1 sonar pings:

Keri said...

Yup. My thoughts exactly.

I'm sooo sick of hearing about Obama's blackness. Why is it such an issue? Would it be as big a hoopla if he were half Asian or half Hispanic? I'm much more interested in what he's going to accomplish as president than whether or not he's making history as the first minority to hold the office.

But then again, like you mentioned, I'm a 30 year old white woman so maybe I just don't get it...