Obama

Thursday night was the first time I’ve sobbed during a political speech. The tears started during the DNC video about Obama’s life and pretty much continued on and off until Nancy P. closed the thing down. I’m not a big political junkie like Jose or a hard core activist, but this election has fired me up. I am drawn to Obama’s vision for our country and really want to believe change is possible.

This election has taken on a new dimension for me as the future mother of an Ethiopian-American. As I watched the pictures of Obama with his mother, I felt a connection to her (and then I cried some more). I too will be the White mother of a Black child. I wonder what that was like for them. How did she approach issues of race with her son? How did she teach him to be confident in a racist world? How did he feel growing up in a family that didn’t look like him? I guess I need to read his book again. But it provides a measure of reassurance that interracial families do figure it out.

I also am excited by the idea that our child will grow up in a United States in which an African American man and a woman were the top contenders for the highest position in our country. Hopefully, this election is an indication that the barriers often faced by women and people of color will continue to fall. Perhaps this election signals that Baby Barto will live in a country where racism and sexism are more often than not trumped by equality and fairness.

Barak Obama has given me hope that our country can make some serious change. He has given me hope that our nation can strive to do the right thing. I want to raise our child in the country that Obama believes we can become.