I'm a little fired up at the moment.
History was made last night. America elected its first black president.
Being a white girl who calls Maine home, I don't think I can claim to grasp the significance of that. In fact, I know I can't grasp the significance of that. But I'm shocked by people who don't even try.
Do you realize the civil rights movement was only fifty years ago? Segregated schools, organizing voter registration for African Americans, the march on Washington...
While legally African Americans may have had the right to vote for nearly 100 years, there were so many obstacles put in there way in order to try and prevent them from taking advantage of that right. Martin Luther King Jr. led a march in 1965 to protest a lack of voting rights, including literacy tests and poll taxes. At that point in time, it was still just unsafe for African Americans to attempt to vote. That's only 43 years ago!
So when I hear people voice that they don't understand, that Obama's just another man, I know that they don't understand. There are people voting today who that once wasn't an option for. And on the other side of that, the people who were oppressing them are still alive. Racism is still alive and to deny that is ignorance.
So please, please, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, please recognize the significance of what we have just witnessed, and celebrate a country moving forward.
1 comment:
I am so proud of you for writing that! You are amazing! I agree completely with what you said, and I'm so glad that you had the guts to say it. I just wish more people understood. maybe you are the start of that change. just one more person understanding and speaking out. thank you.
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