Pride and Prejudice along the Unfinished Journey

The Babylon 5 fans amongst you will understand how I’m waking up this morning wanting a t-shirt that reads, “I was there at the dawn of the third age of mankind… and I all I got were my civil rights taken away.”

While Michelle Obama got in trouble for saying something like this, but I’ll be crystal clear: last night was the first night I was ever truly proud to be American.

I spent last night watching with my dear friend from high school friend, Adam (who is the grandson of a pioneering black Congressman), with Adam’s wife, and with a group of their friends who were, other than me, all African American. Watching the crowds celebrating at the White House gates, at Times Square, a world away in Kenya, Adam’s wife compared the events to Bastille Day. U.S. voters have both repudiated the failures of the Bush administration, and in part if not in full, the racist heritage of this nation. It appears those voters have done so by a slightly larger margin than I predicted, with Florida turning blue and North Carolina likely to do so. Obama has captured the highest percentage of the popular vote of any Democrat in 44 years, since Lyndon Johnson’s massive landslide in 1964. We have some great new Senators – notably Kay Hagan in North Carolina – though Al Franken appears to have fallen just a few hundred votes short of toppling Norm Coleman, Alaska appears to have returned an octogenarian convicted felon to the Senate instead of Anchorage’s strong liberal mayor, and I still can’t tell what’s going on in Oregon. In the house, some of the “Better Democrats” pulled out great victories, & a few races (notably in south-central Virginia & near Seattle) are too close to call, but a lot more of the progressive Democrats fell short in their Congressional races.

But the Supreme Court is safe, as is the broader federal judiciary, and John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg can retire without fearing that Roe v. Wade will be overturned. Guantánamo’s days are numbered. This administration and this Congress will bring us an Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and hopefully, and end to the military ban on LGBT servicemembers. If there’s no clear solutions to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, climate change, the global financial crisis, or the HIV/AIDS pandemic, we at least have leadership dedicated to collaborative problem solving rather than arrogant and counterproductive unilateralism.

I can barely put into words the joy and tears of watching Obama’s victory with Adam, his wife, and their friends, as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia came in, and then as the networks all declared the race right at 11pm EST. I’d thought I’d be trading far more calls & text messages with my friends and family, but I was swept away in the emotion of the moment. Watching the rally in Chicago, the joy of the Obama and Biden families mingling so happily together, the beauty of Sasha and Malia Obama on stage with their parents (I loved it when their dad promised them a new puppy), we were overcome. I couldn’t help but think of my father and grandmother, or of how this will be the first election that my nine-year-old niece remembers, and this will be the world that she’ll take for granted. We joked about how President Obama’s photo will be in every federal building, every police station, every government office in the land, and how, like John Kennedy for Catholic Americans, how Obama’s photo will be in so very many African American households for a very long time to come. We traded stories, of personal experiences with racism and the faith to keep fighting for a better world, and toasted all the women and men who struggled against slavery and our own apartheid to make this possible – especially all those whose names we’ll never know. We’re all aware that last night wasn’t an end, but a beginning, an opportunity to seize, a door to walk through. Now the real work begins – but a moment to pause, to celebrate, to dance is definitely in order. Selah.

And yet…

It appears that a thin majority of California voters chose to write marriage apartheid into the state constitution. If I feel kicked in the stomach, and I do, I can barely imagine the pain and grief of those of you out there in the tarnished Golden State, especially those of you whose marriages and whose fundamental civil rights should never, ever been put to a popular vote. I see glimmers of hope in how a majority of white and Latino voters opposed the measure, as did voters with a college education. As a historian, taking the long view, I have deep faith that today’s defeat will be overturned, and will eventually be seen as a gross embarrassment. That does nothing at all to salve the pain today, the injustice and insult, and we will have to attend to our wounds to fight back. My friend Dave has written a scathing, must-read letter to Proposition 8 supporters, which I heartily recommend reading.

My grad school advisor titled his textbook on modern U.S. history, The Unfinished Journey, and I’ve never taken that title so personally as I do this morning. On a night where overall, the arc of the universe bent a little more towards justice, we got left behind. But we will fight back – yes we can, yes we will, and we will win.

Explore posts in the same categories: Uncategorized

Tags: 2008 u.s. presidential election, Add new tag, barack obama, california, history, john mccain, lgbt rights, lyndon johnson, north carolina, race, sci-fi, u., u.s. house, u.s. senate, united states

You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.