As I write this, all major media outlets and polls are declaring Barack Obama the president elect, and there are shouts of celebration outside my apartment window.
No one can predict the future with any certainty, so it's anyone's guess how Obama will perform or how the next four years will play out for the United States. It doesn't matter. Reality is nine-tenths perception.
The moment someone addresses Barack Obama as Mr. President for the first time, old prejudices will be overturned and new ideas of what makes a president will be remade. This is more than simply historic. This election has altered the reality that Americans have lived under and within for 232 years.
2008-11-04
Here's to Hope
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3 comments:
Would that make perception 1 1/9 of reality?
It may sound trite to some, but I just keep thinking about how when I was a child, the thought of a non-white (like me) president was just so impossible to me. I look at my nieces and nephews and how they just accept this reality like it's the most normal thing in the world, and you're right- whatever happens next with Obama- that feeling will never be erased for those kids.
Thanks, Librarian Girl. I'm a white guy from the suburbs, so it's always been my America. But I must admit, I like the look of our America.
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