Greetings from the very deep South, my fellow Folcs! From a state every bit as red as Superman’s cape...
I have two cents or more to toss in. All of it merely my opinion, grain of salt included, disclaimer and etc.
Born and raised in Georgia, I know it doesn’t matter that President-Elect Obama is half-white. It’s not the family tree people see when they look at him. It’s the skin color.
And the reality of his skin color is that it signals, in some, assumptions and stereotypes and even fear. The most difficult of these to combat are the unconscious assumptions; that sort of ‘soft bigotry’ which probably doesn’t recognize itself as such, because it’s so unconscious. It’s under the skin, in the bone, steeped in the culture. But it’s very much there.
For this reason, I was afraid to hope-- despite what the polls said and what the projections were. But, also for this reason, I kept my kids out of school and took them with me to the voting booth yesterday. I wanted them to see history. To be able to tell their kids and grandkids they ‘helped’ pull the lever. (There was no lever. It was a button, but still...)
And what I really hope and believe is because our new President has brown skin, future generations will grow up with his portrait on classroom walls, his image in textbooks, and eventually on the dollar bill (heh), and that unconscious bigotry-- so much a part of the tapestry of the old South, and probably other places too-- will erode away.
Now all that said, it’s not his color that won this election, lest that be suggested. It was the Economy . And Obama’s smart, steady, and even-keeled campaign.
I absolutely do not envy him the task ahead. But I’m very proud of my country today!
(And am a member of the Thrilled and Giddy constituency.)
CC
