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Hello Friends,
I've been planning to write this post for some time now. But in light of Barack Obama's historic win Tuesday night I can't think of a more perfect time to share this update with you.
Since January I have been volunteering at the local church that I attend (International Baptist Church of Dakar). On Saturdays I teach English with another American volunteer. We have about 25 students that are split into three groups: beginner, intermediate and advanced. I teach the advanced group. My students already know how to speak English so we brush up on grammar and practice our creative writing skills. However, there was one topic that always seems to be on the tips of their tongues. They are absolutely obsessed with Barack Obama! They know more about the US presidential election process than I do and they constantly ask me for the latest updates. I have had to become an election expert so that I can share information with them. As a treat for the class I decided a few weeks ago that we would read Senator Obama's first book, Dreams from My Father.
If you have not read this book I HIGHLY suggest you pick
David
No matter what, David is always ALL smiles :) it up if for no other reason than to enjoy a beautifully written story. The simplicity with which Obama paints the stunningly detailed backdrop of his amazing story is nothing short of breath taking!
But even more beautiful than Senator Obama's prose is the pride that it engenders in my students. Often times while we are reading they will stop me mid-sentence and ask for the ump-teenth time, "This man's father is from Kenya?" And for the ump-teenth time I answer in the affirmative. "Ah," they say, "That means he is black just like us."
Oh, how I wish you could see the light in their eyes when they say this and watch as the breadth of their chests swells with pride at the idea that a man like them could inspire a generation... that someone with a beginning similar - or in some instances even worse - than their own could now legitimately become the leader of the free world. It is something that still leaves me misty eyed with a lump in my throat.
I first heard Barack Obama speak in back in 2005 when he was the keynote speaker at the Illinois Press Association annual awards luncheon.
Even though he'd been thrust on the national stage after his riveting speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he was still very much the tall, geeky looking guy with the funny name. But when he took to the podium a hush fell over the room and we (hundreds of jaded, crotchety journalists) were lulled by the easy cadence of his confident and knowledgeable oration. I returned to my newsroom the next day and said, "I don't know what that guy's going to do, but whatever it is it is going to be BIG." I don't even think that I then had the capacity to imagine just how big BIG could be.
I can write this confidently knowing that he would have had my support this election had Senator Obama been a middle-aged white man with a milquetoast name with the same ideas and positions on public policy. But I must admit that the fact that he is a black American is a source of immense pride. When I look at him I see all the dreams and hopes of my ancestors come to fruition.
My ancestors were brought to America in the belly of a stinking, rotting slave ship
and thrust on the shores of a land where they were reviled and relegated to a status just slightly above that of an animal. Sort of like oxen who talked and walked upright. Yet even from that hardscrabble beginning they worked, prayed and dreamed of the day when they too would be invited to the table of humanity and allowed to dine. As I contemplate the deeper meaning behind Tuesday night's primary, my mind frantically searches through the archived file of historic moments and figures searching for the words to name the exact mixture of pride, relief, accomplishment, justice, and hope that I feel when I think about the fact that a black man named Barack Obama now stands at the precipice of the way things have always been and the possibility of the way they COULD be, poised to become President of the United States of America and leader of the Western world. The fact that I am alive to witness it and able to participate in ensuring that the dream in fact becomes a reality is too big of an emotion to even condense into words! That historic list in my mind is filled with "firsts" and notable
Americans like Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, Emmit Till, The Little Rock Nine, Shirley Chisholm and, of course, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Today, while reading through the many articles and blogs commenting on Senator Obama's amazing feat I came across a comment from one person who wrote "Dr. King had a dream, Barack Obama IS that dream." I couldn't have said it any better than that.
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