Friday, August 29, 2008

IN MY LIFETIME!!! A DREAM REALIZED


OHH YEA!!!! POTUS-in-67-days Barack Obama knocked it out of the park last night! Sisterdoc was nervous. She is still hating on that traitor-turned race-baiter, Bill Clinton….but Bill knows how to deliver a speech. So, I wondered if ‘Rak was going to measure up. OHHH YEA!!!! The speech worked because it toned down some of the rhetorical flourish, to focus on the substantive. He broke it all the way down: McCain doesn’t get it…tax cuts for the middle-class…eliminating capital gains taxes for small businesses…breaking away from a dependence on foreign oil…tapping natural gas reserves…he is a patriot, not a celebrity…higher salaries for teachers….affordable college education…lower health care premiums...no more homeless vets…no more AK-47s on the streets…no more Bush policies!!!

And, Barack accepted the nomination on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech.” He echoed King by imploring us to not walk alone, never turn back, and to keep marching. Folks were in tears!

Which brings me to my mother. With a lump in her throat, my mother told me that there were so many reasons that this day was the most important day of her life. But one thing she said stood out. She said that she was glad that our country was witnessing this achievement while those hateful Jim Crow era people are still alive. My mother is glad that many of those segregationists are witnessing a Black man, with a very Black name, about to enter the White House. You see, my mother’s parents (my grandparents) struggled hard for their right to vote. My mother had a bayonet pointed at her by a National Guard soldier when they stormed her neighborhood during the riots. My mother has had some tough experiences. But, she wants those people, who denied her so very much, to see it with their very own eyes---Black people will never be bowed or beaten.

Barack was speaking to my mother when he said:

“At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise, that American promise, and in the words of scripture-- hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Mom…no more dreams deferred.

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