My question about the election…
The political season is finally coming to a close. The ads have faded, and well…the media coverage not so much, but at least it isn’t as bad as it was. This election season has been very eye opening for me. I have been amazed at how many of my friends, Christian and non-Christian alike, have assumed Johnny and I would vote for Obama. Neither one of us could really understand this because it was NEVER about the skin color but about the policies.
Having said that, I grew increasingly concern about the state of race relations in our nation. Things that I believed we had moved passed seemed to be surfacing and I found myself becoming increasingly apprehensive about Tuesday. I worried that whatever the outcome Tuesday, we would see a reaction from extremest on either side that would taint the historical significance of what we had accomplished over the last 40 years.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t somewhat disappointed, but not surprised, when the projections started coming in so overwhelmingly for Obama. I went to bed early and when I got up, the most exciting thing to me was that there was no news to report…I mean there were no race riots and my belief about race in America was once again restored…we have made a lot of progress. There are still extremest on both sides, there is still prejudice, but I believe in my heart for most of us, race is not the thing that we base our decisions on.
I admire my father-in-law who lived through the civil rights movement and suffered his fair share of racism and yet he was able to vote based on his political values without concern for the color of the candidates skin. And being the son of such a man my husband asked the question Tuesday night about whether Obama was elected on the color of his skin or the content of his character? We’ll never really know, but here’s my question… as I watched the coverage yesterday I thought of my husband’s grandparents. I thought of what they must have gone through in this country, of Tete fighting for our nation without even being able to truly experience the freedoms he fought for. I thought of THEIR character, the amazing daughter THEY raised, the daughter that mothered the most unprejudiced man I have ever met and I thought…if I had walked in THEIR shoes, if I had suffered the hardships that this nation bestowed unfairly on THEM, if I had grown up seeing people voted in to office without ever believing that was a possibility for MY children or grandchildren regardless of their capability or qualifications, if I were them, could I have looked passed the issues and passed up the opportunity to see history take place in my lifetime, to see a part of that dream become reality…the truth is…I don’t know.
As I watched on TV last night and I saw an elderly black woman break down in tears as she talked about the fact that now she could tell her grandkids, and really believe it, that they could be anything they wanted…I thought….
Today I prayed for President-Elect Obama…I will pray for him often just as I have President Bush the last 8 years.
