am overjoyed for Obama, his family and this country. The election of the first black president was a long time coming and arrived right on time.

A few weeks before the election I began posing the question: How will a black president effect me, the black writer?

I'd like to hear your feedback on that question, and here are my hopes and thoughts:

Obama is representative of the Black american we seldom see in publishing. Meaning, he is not a whore-monger, drug-dealer, drug user or absent baby-daddy. He is not a slave to designer labels and he does not wear bling. We have not seen him ducking into a bodega to buy a forty, he does not congregate on street corners, and no source has come forward to reveal that he smoked a blunt before his debates with John McCain. If he wears a "wife-beater" it's hidden beneath his shirt, excatly where it's supposed to be. He does not wear his pants down around his knees, nor does he throw up gang signs at the end of his wildly televised speeches. If he likes to smack that ass (meaning Michelle's) and grab her hair and ask, Whose pussy is this? - well that's fine 'cause what goes on in their bedroom should stay in their bedroom.

OK so after nearly a decade of the market being deluged with books focusing on the aforementioned stereotypes what happens now?

Will publishers change gears and begin publishing works written by African American that speak to a multitude of people? Or will they remain stagnet and committed to a shattered belief system?

In this country where white people out number black people by a staggering percentage - a black man was elected president.

Hello Mr. Publisher! If people of all colors, religions and cultures could come together and do something as monumental as putting a black man in office - why would you continue to believe that those very same people would have no interest in reading what a black author has to say?

The people have spoken, are you listening?

Mr. Publisher will you please catch up with the rest of America and step over the color line? I assure you that the grass is greener over there.