Level Setting Expectations

Can you believe it!!! I truly never thought that I would see a Black President in my lifetime. Call me what you want, and I am sure you will, but I really never had that much faith that the majority culture had the ability to trust the son of a people that they enslaved, and moreover fought to enslave a race of people. These words may seem harsh to the majority, white Americans, but they come from a place of honesty and history. I am not that person to blame racism for all the ills of the black community, I am that person who demands personal accountability no matter the skin you were born in, but my experience has been that for whatever reason many white people fear and distrust Black people. And, as a result, whites have been very discerning about who they allow in to take advantage of class fluidity, and how many, for that matter. I have to say that the fear and distrust that white people display against Black people has always baffled me, given that history would suggest that the fear and distrust should go in the other direction.

Beyond race, and hear me that I want to get beyond race and that I do not expect that the conversation about race will be stuck where it has been for the last 40 years, Barack Obama's election as the next President has set some very high expectations. There are many people who truly seek the second coming. There are people who expect that President Elect Obama has or will have all the answers to society's current and future woes. Obama inspired a nation to hope for the future and and not fear. Such inspiration carries the high price tag of expectations.

President Elect Obama made a most inspiring and profound victory speech last night November 4, he said that this election was about us and a win for us as a nation. Indeed what he was saying is we won this election to work together. In so many words he challenged us to ask not what our country can do for us, but what we can do for this country. No matter your political philosophy Obama is wise enough to see that our current situation can only be cured by us coming together and taking up for the least of these. He realized that it is going to take every single one of us coming together and lifting our country back to its greatness.

I believe that our voting for the best candidate, in spite of his race, is evidence that we are starting to see each other as fellow Americans. This new sense of solidarity will be the substance that we draw upon to come together and address and overcome our current difficulties. In the next four years, I hope that we can all think back to Barack Obama's words on November 4, 2008 when he said that this will be difficult and that he needs our help, our service and our sacrifice. In the next four years, when you desire to complain about what is being done and not done, remember Barack Obama's words and get to work, make a change and make this country better because Yes, We CAN!