America's Victory and Our Responsibility

As I reflect upon this historical moment, I feel an overwhelming sense of pride and love for my black people, but also for my country. I have never really considered myself a patriot, but tonight I can say that I’m proud to be an American.

Barack Obama’s victory is definitely a victory for all of us – blacks and all minorities, whites, children, women, men. The fact that a black man is now President of a predominantly white country speaks to the progress that our country has made, and for that, I am particularly elated.
My emotions are great, but so is my grounding in reality. I do not mean any of this to take away from the greatness of what we have all witnessed on November 4, 2008. However, we as black people need to make sure that we do not place unrealistic expectations on our President. I am not saying that he should forget about us. But he has a lot of people to keep in mind because we are not the only ones struggling in this country.

Often times we place too much responsibility on our leaders and none on ourselves. Yes, we voted, but that’s only a part of the process of change. We cannot expect Obama to fix an eight-year mess overnight. We also cannot expect him to do it alone. I heard one media personality say that we should make sure that we hold Obama to his promises, and we should. But we should not hold him to unrealistic demands. For example, we are not getting reparations, and we need to let that go. Instead we should focus on community building and our role in helping Obama bring about change.

What worries me most about the responses of some of my peers to this election is their misinformed (or uninformed) perception that racism is over now. We do not need to become complacent. Racism is not over. We should look at our progress toward equality as marathon, not a 200 meter dash. We have come a long way in the race (no pun intended), but we still have a long way to go. The worst thing we can do is think that racism is over now because we have a black President. Instead we should use this moment as inspiration to keep running the marathon to end racism and all inequality.

No one should be expected to change the world by him/herself. I believe Obama can change the world, we have to help him. An America that is void of inequality…now that is the American Dream.