Hope and Healing: Part 1-- Historically Speaking

Barack Obama was elected President of the United States with 53% of the popular vote, the highest margin in 20 years, and the second highest since Reagan defeated Mondale in 1984. Obama won 94% of African American votes and 66% of Latino votes. 43% of white voters cast their ballot for Obama, a higher percentage than either Al Gore or John Kerry attained. It was a shared victory, an American victory – undeniably a “blue” victory. In the face of economic, environmental, military and healthcare crises, Americans were voting for change. The Red party was out, and the Blue party in.

The encouraging thing to me is that the majority of Americans were able to see Senator Obama as a qualified candidate whose views (presumably) were consistent with their own. He wasn’t elected to be the first black President of the United States; he was selected as the most qualified candidate, a candidate able to gain support across age, race and gender lines. While I admittedly struggle with the views of the “right”, some of whom are my friends, I am encouraged that they did not feel compelled to become a part of history by electing a “minority”. Thus, counter to the ranting of Rudy Giuliani at the Republican National Convention, Barack Obama is not an “affirmative action” President.

Nonetheless, I’d like to address the “big white elephant in the middle of the room”. America elected a black President! There, I said it. But what does that mean? And why should it matter? While I can’t answer those questions definitively for all Americans, or even for all black Americans, I’d like to try to give it some context beginning with this first entry in a four-part series on Hope and Healing.

The most significant outcome of the election, I believe, is its psychological impact. I say this because slavery deeply wounded all Americans, perhaps not physically but certainly psychologically. We saw ourselves and one another as though looking through distorted lenses, much like looking in a mirror in the old Fun House. Jim Crow and its legislative annihilation of African Americans' civil liberties further warped the images.

While the Civil Rights Act restored these liberties and, in doing so, removed many of the remaining shackles held over from slavery, the psychological barriers remained. Legislation, after all, can force doors to open that would otherwise remain closed, but it would take at least another generation for minds and hearts to open as well. Today, 145 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and nearly 44 years after the signing of the Civil Rights Act, America is finally living up to Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of being “free at last”.

I believe we are in a unique window in history. We are at a place of hope and healing. President-elect Obama’s victory gives us hope, tangible evidence in fact, that the collective consciousness of the majority of Americans is united in its belief in one nation. I believe that, as he struggled to come to peace with his own mixed heritage, Barack Obama was open to the possibility of one America, the inclusive America that he embodied. In making that possibility a reality for himself, he set an example that we can all follow. And while the rage that was Jeremiah Wright (and, perhaps understandably, so many of his contemporaries) may or may not have subsided, while bigotry and hatred continue to fester in dark corners of America, it is clear that this election has brought irrevocable psychological effects: a sense of elation…a sense of relief… a sense of inclusion...a sense that we are turning a corner on race relations in the US…a sense of optimism about America’s future….a sense of hope for the future that only comes with healing the collective wounds of the past.

This blog is dedicated to Coach A, who gave me the courage to see, feel and believe in my own possibilities.