Peace to All,
Twelve years ago, Harvey Gantt, the first black student admitted to Clemson University, and Charlotte's only black mayor, was ahead according to most polls in a North Carolina senate race with Jesse Helms. On election eve, this ad was broadcast:
and Gantt lost.
Fast forward twelve years and the same state that re-elected a staunch bigot based on racial polarization and fear has voted for an African American presidential candidate, and replaced Jesse Helms' successor, Elizabeth Dole, with a liberal Democrat, Kay Hagan.
Amazing what can change in just a dozen years.
I am under no false magical thinking that all issues and problems in this country will be solved because of the election of Barack Obama, either during his term(s) in office, or even in the next dozen years, but I am not ashamed to express my pride in this poignant moment in North Carolina and American history.
I still remain skeptical and somewhat cynical that much will change in regard to national domestic and foreign policy, but I am reserving judgment because I have allowed myself some hope that a black man, a child of a single mother, a son of a native African who was a political prisoner in his colonized home country, a hard working, temperate, reasoning man will make the right decisions most of the time.
No one is perfect. No one. And no one has all the answers, or even a single completely correct answer to the issues that face all of us. We must hold our new President Elect accountable and keep pressure on him to do what is in our best interests as a whole. Our job is to formulate a cogent agenda based on what is now, and follow through as a people's lobby.
The economy is in the tank, so monetary resources are few, but human capital in the form of grassroots movement may be at an all time high. The potential for much better days is great.
We can still fight the power, the powers that be haven't changed. The President is but a figurehead. But the election of Barack Hussein Obama has placed a new head on the Pez dispenser that is not of the usual mold. Will the Pez be dispensed in the same manner, or will this new figurehead work a little differently? Only time will tell.
Complacency and satisfaction remain the enemy of progress, so the time for struggle is not over, it continues. President Elect Obama is no savior, no messiah, no sorcerer or magician. He is but one person, while we are many. Together, the push and pull of citizens and government will determine the course and method of what is to come. Another opportunity along the arc of our existence has presented itself.
We must take this energy and use it to move forward in real, tangible ways.
Peace,
Pandemonium aka Gabriel