Every time I think too much about the election I start crying--confused, happy, angry tears. It's taken us so long. And yet I didn't think I'd live to see a black president. I thought that the kind of town I grew up in, a small, virulently racist and homophobic, Jew-fearing, Asian-fearing, First Nations-hating, fundamentalist Christian town, was what America consisted of. I didn't realize that there were people who thought differently, besides me and my best (gay, black, mixed-race, and Jewish) friends, until I made it out and went to college. And now I get to see that the hate and fear that defined my childhood is not, in fact, how America works. We're bigger than that and we're better than that. And now maybe we'll prove it.
I'm in debt for school and my job sucks. I can't afford my healthcare so I skip visits and live with pain and fear. I've watched Canadians flood across our border to shop as our dollar dropped and then I've seen the flood dry up as the loonie crapped out. (Not six months ago I could count more BC license plates than Washington license plates in the parking lot at the mall.) My dad freaks out about retirement. My brother-in-law, who's been like a blood brother to me, gets deployed to Iraq over and over again. Right now, the government sucks, and it's done a lot of bad things. But America--the America that I love, not Palin's crazy patchwork--is bouncing back.
I'm going to see vindication in my lifetime. A black president and, maybe, gay marriage--and maybe a female president. It kills me. Maybe we're finally going to be the country I believe in. I was a crazy patriot as a kid. I believed that we could do no wrong. I went through disillusionment, but now I'm back, older, wiser, with a better perspective. I love my country and that means admitting that we can make things better, that sometimes we make mistakes.
Today at the store we bought champagne and donkey-shaped truffles. It was an expense, and we're poor, but dammit, I am ringing in Obama with style.
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Date: 2008-11-04 06:23 am (UTC)Every time I think too much about the election I start crying--confused, happy, angry tears. It's taken us so long. And yet I didn't think I'd live to see a black president. I thought that the kind of town I grew up in, a small, virulently racist and homophobic, Jew-fearing, Asian-fearing, First Nations-hating, fundamentalist Christian town, was what America consisted of. I didn't realize that there were people who thought differently, besides me and my best (gay, black, mixed-race, and Jewish) friends, until I made it out and went to college. And now I get to see that the hate and fear that defined my childhood is not, in fact, how America works. We're bigger than that and we're better than that. And now maybe we'll prove it.
I'm in debt for school and my job sucks. I can't afford my healthcare so I skip visits and live with pain and fear. I've watched Canadians flood across our border to shop as our dollar dropped and then I've seen the flood dry up as the loonie crapped out. (Not six months ago I could count more BC license plates than Washington license plates in the parking lot at the mall.) My dad freaks out about retirement. My brother-in-law, who's been like a blood brother to me, gets deployed to Iraq over and over again. Right now, the government sucks, and it's done a lot of bad things. But America--the America that I love, not Palin's crazy patchwork--is bouncing back.
I'm going to see vindication in my lifetime. A black president and, maybe, gay marriage--and maybe a female president. It kills me. Maybe we're finally going to be the country I believe in. I was a crazy patriot as a kid. I believed that we could do no wrong. I went through disillusionment, but now I'm back, older, wiser, with a better perspective. I love my country and that means admitting that we can make things better, that sometimes we make mistakes.
Today at the store we bought champagne and donkey-shaped truffles. It was an expense, and we're poor, but dammit, I am ringing in Obama with style.