Although the vision may tarry, wait!

From where I’m standing

On Nov. 4, 2008, America chose its 44th president of the United States. The presidential election has always been the most important day in our country’s history. You would not know it by the lack of participation in the greatest Democracy in the world. From past elections, groups of people of every race, creed and religion chose to sit out of the process because most of us at certain times felt as though there was nothing or no one to vote for. In layman’s terms, it seems that no matter who was running for the office, it always seemed to be one group of people that was not represented.
And I’m not talking about color. I’m talking about ideology and bitter partisan divides. But this election season started out differently -- the beginning of a dream that was spoken of 40 odd years ago by an African-American preacher about the promise of a better day. He stood on the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke to a very divided nation about a dream. He said that he dreamed that one day a man or woman would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. He said that he dreamed of a world where little black children and little white children could join hands and sing the song of freedom. He went on to say that he probably would not live to see it.
But we, as a people, would one day overcome our fear of one another. He had a dream. Forty odd years or so have passed since that day, and we have anticipated that the manifestation of the dream would start through a movement in the church or in the black community, never thinking that the mantle would fall on Jan. 3, 2008 in the caucuses of Iowa. The men and women of Iowa putting fear and division aside, and chose the “Audacity Of Hope.”
While most of Black America stood back and watched in awe of what had then just happened. Obama -- an African American candidate with little known about him and a funny name, but Iowa had grasped a hold to something that the rest of us would begin to see over the next 10 months. Something greater than the man was going on. As I said in the opening words, on Nov. 4, America elected the first African-American to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Stay with me now, because as always, I’m going somewhere. We must understand that he is not a president for black people only, and it was not just black people who vaulted him into the corridors of history. But white, black, Hispanic, and all other nationalities began to breathe life into a dream that had lain dormant for so long. It became clear to me in the middle of this historic event that something more than a presidential election was going on, but history was and now has been made.
That same campaign ended up in Chicago, where Abraham Lincoln began his journey with fate. And as fate would have it, it ended where it began. Now don’t get me wrong, will putting an African-American in office break the back of bigotry, hate, and division? As I grow older, I have begun to understand that racism and bigotry is not an entity of itself. When you get right down to it, it’s just about hate. But America spoke loud and clear, that we were tired of politics as usual. We replaced hope where there was fear, we replaced doubt with belief, and we came together as one voice saying that America can change. America must change, and America will change.
So does this give black people a mandate to stop trying? No! It only inspires us to try harder. Reach out to your white brothers and sisters because by voting for Barack Obama, they reached out to you. The Bible says that ye are without an excuse, and you are. Racism cannot stop you from being what God intended for you to be. Whether you be white or black. So what am I trying to say? Young brothers, pull up your pants, stop selling drugs to your neighbors children. Stop impregnating young girls and leaving them to fend for themselves. Finish school, continue in higher learning and better yourself in the world around you.
Will it be easy? No! But is it do-able? Yes! And if we did not learn anything else from this election, we learned this one thing: when they say you can’t finish, when they say that you are from the wrong part of town, when they say you’re not the right pedigree, you simply reply with these words: Yes I can, yes we can, yes we did! Because Martin Luther King Jr. did not say that we would get there as individuals, he said, and I quote: “As a people we can, and we will get to the promised land.” America is the land of great promise and great opportunity, but through great adversity and through the power of unity we made a leap into the future. Now let us all embrace this future together, knowing this: If America fails for some, then it fails for all. But if America offers equal opportunity to all then is not the power of success or failure in one’s own ability to obtain. It has been proven that if you can dream it, you can see. Then if you can see it, you can obtain it. Now that we as America have made this giant leap toward progress, there is no excuse to stand in the past. We must go forward, and forward we will go. As one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all. But hey, what would I know about all of these things, I’m just a believer in change. And that would be from where we were standing to where we are standing and to where we will be standing together. Yes we can!