Chase Park Plaza – St. Louis
Back when Bush and his war were still popular, a prominent local anti-war activist was asked why he continued to protest the Iraq War once it had already started. He said because he remembered how he felt the moment when the Vietnam War ended. I remember at the time trying to conjure what that must have felt like. Working so hard for something and not always having faith in your country to do the right thing and then finally, it happens. It’s how I feel right now.
I was born in 1973. The first election I can remember was Ronald Reagan’s. I grew up in the ghetto in a world of AIDS, crack and Reaganomics. What’s worse: I was a card carrying member of Generation X. Generation Whatever. The generation that was born with a black belt in sarcasm and was in love with an irony it couldn’t define. We inherited all of our parent’s cynicism without having earned it by living through Watergate, Vietnam, or the assassinations of Kennedy and King. We were the generation that always had its fingers crossed behind its back when we had to say something sincere. It was hard for us to believe in anything.
I didn’t realize how true this was until tonight. All through this campaign I have focused so much on whatever task was right in front of me, that I never really stopped to think about how it would feel if Obama actually won. When Barack Obama was announced as the next President of the United States, I started crying and cried uncontrollably for the better part of two hours. I still can’t believe it.
Today, I put in a 12 hour day at the South Grand campaign office and then another 3 hours or so at the campaign party. I took an 80-something-year-old white woman with no family and no car to vote an hour before the polls closed. This morning, an unemployed black man who had just voted for the first time, just walked into the campaign office and asked if he could do something, so they put him to work and he put in a full day along with the rest of us. This is a brother that a white woman might cross the street to get away form on any other day. As I was leaving the campaign party, he was hugging Robin Carnahan, the Missouri Secretary of State. This is the power of the Obama moment. My father didn’t live to see this day, but shortly before I left for the polls, I put on a bracelet of his that I only wear on special occasions and took him to the voting booth with me.
I know he’s not perfect. I know he’s not the Messiah. He will make decisions that are both unpopular and politically expedient. I know that in my generation, to admit to believing in a politician is tantamount to admitting to being naïve. But I believe in Barack Obama and tonight I’m proud to be an American.