CerebralDebris

First off, for full disclosure: I did not vote for Barack Obama. Nor did I vote for John McCain. Nor did I abstain from voting due to some kind of personal reason. I went out to PS 282 in Brooklyn, NY, and voted for Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party. While I am not a member of the Green Party and hold no particular alliance to them, I chose to vote for her because during my research, I found that her statements and voting record matched my beliefs a startling amount more than any of the other potential candidates.

I live in New York City, and therefor was under no illusions that my candidate had a chance. This is a very, very “blue” state, and Obama had it locked up basically the moment he beat Hillary Clinton during the primaries. Nonetheless, I felt compelled to vote by the issues, rather than getting swept up in Obama fever, which has certainly taken hold of much of Brooklyn.

Nothing against the esteemed senator — I share many beliefs with him, and happily celebrated his victory last night. I believe he is a good man, and I hope he will be a good president. If nothing else, I look forward to at least four years of not cringing every time my country’s leader speaks the word “nuclear” on television.

This post isn’t really about political beliefs, though. I’m frankly not very interested in politics most of the time, and I generally believe that there’s very little difference between the various faces that are presented to me to vote for every few years. I remain unconvinced that the American populace as a whole has any idea what’s “best” for it, or that there is in fact any real “best” that applies to such a large and diverse country. What’s best for me is not the same as what’s best for someone in rural Iowa. What I hope is that we can continue as a nation to reach compromises that are acceptable to as many people as possible.

What really makes me happy, and what makes me proud of my country for the first time in quite some time, is the concrete proof this election has brought that we are, as a nation, transcending our past. Less than fifty years after brutal race riots, anti-integration protests, and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we have elected a black man president.

In the crowd at Chicago last night, the TV cameras found Jesse Jackson, a man who lived through those times, fought through those times, twice ran for president himself, and has watched as his country and his people – the American people – continue to pull themselves up, slowly but surely, to a better place. The Reverend was weeping openly, as were many of the people in the crowd, both black and white, as Obama took the stage to make his victory speech.

I found the sight quite moving. Here was a man who has worked his entire life for this moment, witnessing something of which he had dreamed for decades, something which he had no doubt many times wondered if he would ever see in his lifetime. We are nowhere near finished — there remain great wounds in this country that need healing, and I’m sure no one is more aware of that than Jackson himself — but to have come so far in fifty short years … what an amazing accomplishment this is.

There will be triumphs and disappointments during Barack Obama’s time as president, as there are for all elected officials. He will not singlehandedly lead us to salvation, nor is it likely he will preside over the destruction of our nation. History may judge him as a good president, or a bad one, or perhaps one of the many that have been deemed largely medicore. Time will tell.

But in the vote itself, we can find indisputable proof that The United States of America has grown as a nation and as a people, and perhaps find inspiration as well, and hope.