I have been planning to start my blog for the last six months and decided that my first day would be February 1, ‘09. However, watching the morning talk shows today, Inauguration Day, I decided to start today. I have been thinking about the African-American people who are over 70 years old, especially those from the Southern states, how overwhelming a day this is for them. I hope that the ones who are so young that they may not understand the significance of this day, have someone to relate this great day to them.
Can we just for a minute, think how humiliated these elderly people felt when they were told that they couldn’t use a particular bathroom because of their race, no matter how badly they wanted to go. This injustice has caused me the most anger I have felt towards America, since I first came to this great country in June 1971.
However, today I am so happy, so ecstatic that an African-American is now president of this great country.
It was an overwhelming day for those of us who lived through the race riots in Detroit in 1967 as well. I never thought we’d see a black man elected in this country and I’m glad we did elect one who is smarter than 99% of the people already in Washington DC.
Greetings, mother Willis. I see where your son gets his way with words.
Republicans failed to make a crucial distinction here. They saw African-American elation at the election of a black man – something that the bulk of them could never really viscerally understand – and then tried to make the leap that they voted for him because of race. They couldn’t grasp the subtlety that (as I understand it) minorities voted for him out of policy preference over Sen. McCain, that his race was the primary factor.
*That should say, “was not the primary factor.” Yeesh. First comment in the new digs and I blow it…
What you say here still starts to bring tears to my eyes, as Inauguration Day did.
Conversely, the most fun of last year for me was seeing the glee of Black people as they realized that, impossibly, Obama could get — and then would get — elected.
I’d looked to Inauguration Day with a kind of somber joy: after 8 years of Bush we were getting back to America, and I was thinking my theme song for the day would be “The Peat-bog Soldiers”, a song written in a concentration camp, which ends optimistically “Heimat, du bist wider mein” — My country, you’re mine again.
But spirits were high that day, and I went around whistling “Year of Jubilo” instead.
“I have been thinking about the African-American people who are over 70 years old, especially those from the Southern states.”
The southern states? The south was not the only region of the country with slaves, nor was the civil war only about slavery, thought that’s a different topic.
As a black man who has lived many years in the south, was born in the south, I find a much deeper racism in New York City than anywhere else I’ve been. You should probably learn a little about U.S. history instead of just repeating what you’ve heard.
“They couldn’t grasp the subtlety that (as I understand it) minorities voted for him out of policy preference over Sen. McCain, that his race wasn’t the primary factor.”
Then we should stop saying this:
“However, today I am so happy, so ecstatic that an African-American is now president of this great country.”
No mention of policy, just race.
Reverse racism will get us nowhere.