Dear Barack...

Dear Barack,

I woke up to a new world today. I literally saw the sun rise on a world that is
full of hope for you and what you can do.

Fifty years ago, the idea that you, a black man in America, could be president
would have been laughable. But last night, the tradition of hundreds of years
of racism on our shores was dealt a massive blow and the cause of equality was
lifted up like it hasn't been before. This was bigger than the Civil War or the
Civil Rights Movement -- there was no violence here, no blood shed, no fire
hoses, or riot gear. There was the realization that we, finally, were ready for
a new dawn; this was a victory of ideas, a victory of the belief that the idea
of every person -- man, woman, black, white, yellow -- has validity. We elected
you, not because you are black but because we believe in you, the man.

I watched you win the presidency of my country from thousands of miles away in
the grass field of a hotel in the heart of Accra, Ghana. I watched it with a
country and a continent that has been raped and pillaged by people of my skin
color and by each other. I watched as they hoped that finally America would
start to wash away her sins. I watched as they hoped that who they viewed as
messiah would be elected and would save their continent. I stood next to black
Americans who literally broke down in tears next to me at the announcement of
your coronation. I thought about the claw marks on the walls of the the slave
castles and how I can never understand the relief that the ancestors of those
people feel now. I stood next to people who openly stated that they had lost
faith in America until the electoral count blew past 270.

Their view and the view of the world changed in that moment. I saw it change. I
saw the faces of Americans, Canadians, Europeans, and Ghanaians all change to
expressions of utter joy. I jumped and danced and sang with a crowd overwhelmed
by the magnitude of what had just happened, eyes welling with tears, including
my own, just thinking about the possibilities for tomorrow and shedding the
fear and hate of yesterday.

Eight years of anger, disillusionment, lies, anger, pessimism, cronyism, piss
poor foreign, domestic, and economic policies became past tense. There have
been eight years of people disappearing into black bags, my civil liberties
being threatened and those of others being taken away. There have been eight
years of economic policy that let the rich get richer and poor get poorer and
that sucked our budget surplus dry and left us with a massive debt. There have
been eight years of policy that have ignored our moral and human obligation to
the rest of the world. And there have been five years of policies that have
damned our young men and women to war without cause, without justification and
without the benefit of a plan that made any sort of sense given the context of
the situation.

I don't know how much of that will really change with you. You are a politician
albeit a smart one and politicians have a tendency of making promises they
don't keep. All I know is that for the first time in a long time I am hopeful
for our country. For the first time, I feel like I will be able to take a
breath from damning every decision my country makes. America is my country; it
is my home. Watching her falter is painful but watching the possibility of her
greatness returning, for her guiding light to burn once more is the most
uplifting feeling I have had in a long time.

You have all the pressure in the world, almost literally, on your shoulders. But
you have asked for our faith in you and you have asked for our help. If you
walk the walk rather than just talking the talk, I will follow you. If you ask
for a sacrifice, I will make it. If you ask for patience, I will give it. If
you ask for faith, I will keep it so long as you keep breathing life back into
our country, into our democracy, and into our world. America is suppose to play
as a team and we haven't for decades. As long as you don't forget that we're a
team we will move forward, strengthening the ties that keep us together and
breaking down the walls that divide us.

It's a new dawn Barack Obama. Welcome to your first day on the job.

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