Why Race Mattered.
Last night, America elected its first black president. Historic indeed, but at first I didn’t get it. Race isn’t supposed to matter, right? We weren’t voting for a black man, we were voting for a president. But, 95% of the African-American vote is pretty telling, if you ask me. I don’t think you can argue against the fact that some people voted for Barack Obama simply because he was black, just as some people voted for John McCain because he wasn’t. But why? Why is this so important to so many people?
As I watched the evening unfold, I saw interview after interview with pioneers of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s – old, black men and women who were, in some instances, beaten to within an inch of their lives for standing up for racial equality. Men and women whose friends were killed for no reason other than they were black and unapologetic.
Then, interviewers asked these people the same question, over and over again:
“Did you ever think you would live to see this day?”
And, incredibly, every time, the same answer:
“No.”
These people, who would have given their lives, and in fact, many of their friends and family members did, were all doing it while never expecting to hear the crescendo, praying that one day future generations would reap the rewards of the seeds they were sowing. Facing their own mortality, they planted their feet, and stood their ground for one thing: Hope.
Last night, they saw their dreams bloom in a Chicago park. Not just because one of them was going to become president, but because people – all people – joined them and walked down the path they cleared for us. We as a nation came together and said that we were willing to stand our ground and, although it may not be easy, we will make things better, maybe not for ourselves, but for our future: OUR future. All of us.
It’s the kind of thing that couldn’t have happened any other way. For a long, long time, up until the election results came in, the question was almost a joke – could this country ever overlook race elect a black man president? Could we ever truly fulfill Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream and be a nation that would look past the color of someone’s skin and to the content of their character?
Today, the answer is yes.
Yes we can.