Wednesday, January 21, 2009

"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us ...

for so long no longer apply."

excerpted from President Obama's speech.

Yesterday was an amazing day for America!
Two powerful themes as a result of the incredible history made yesterday are buzzing in my mind. Both are competing for my attention as I rethink and relive the incredible events that transpired in one short day. I want to say we as a nation should be proud of the fact that right now at this very moment the majority of us are looking to our president Barack Obama as a leader that speaks to us about being personally accountable for our actions and we are responding with a resounding, " Yes we will!" this positive attitude of the general population makes me proud to be an American.
From President Obama's Inauguration speech,

"...But those values upon which our success depends-honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism-these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.
What is demanded, then, is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility-a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

Yes, all of the bad news is still around us. It's not going away overnight, we all know that. Yet our hope lies in a man who knows how to speak to America as well as the Americans who are responding positively to the difficult tasks at hand. Barack is reminding us that American history is filled with powerful examples of what our ancestors did to not only survive, but flourish. Like Obama said, it is important to remember what this country has already done..."what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage."

& the other equally important thing abuzz in my brain- for those of you who doubted things would change with our new president, you need only look at the person who is now residing at the White House to see the evidence of this other American dream realized. It gives me immeasurable joy knowing with complete certainty that young children of color who are alive this very day will see that, yes, people do change and yes, there is such a thing as hope and like Mr. Robert McDaniel who was quoted this morning in Newsday said, "We bleed red, we breathe air. We need to be one, maybe now there is a chance."
Amen I say to that Mr. McDaniel.

for a happy Obama music video, please go visit the danish poet here.

2 comments:

Ian France said...

Beautifully written, and so so true. What a beautiful speech, and a beautiful change for america!

Reader Wil said...

Very moving, poignant! I was so excited to see all those happy faces of people who have been discriminated against for generations. Such a pity that the great MLK couldn't witness this event. Thank you for this post!. For you is there an award on my blog in my post "Award or no Award".