What does Obama mean to us?

Yesterday, I spoke with a worker (probably of Hispanic ancestry) at my regular grocery store, Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco.  We shared how happy we are at the election of Barack Obama.  I asked him what he was happy about.  He said that the day after the election, three people greeted him warmly and directly on the street, the type of people who never ever had greeted him before.  I asked how he would typify the type of person who is now greeting him.  He said, “Caucasian,” with a look of awe in his face. 

A new world has begun.  Minds are changed.  Perceptions are changed.  Fences are mending.  Connections are made.

Clearly, Barack Obama touches a vibrant nerve in the whole world.  Please post what changes you’ve felt in the world and in your self since the election.  What does the election of Barack Obama mean to you? 

Thank you.  I look forward to hearing your story.  

Why did we cry when Obama was elected?

On the night Obama was elected, the local news showed me clapping, yelling, and crying.  A reporter asked me what I felt.  I was so overwhelmed that I spoke about being happy but I didn’t really know what were the thoughts behind the extreme feeling I was in the grip of.

Over the next few days, I pondered the question of why did I cry.  I watched people crying all over the world and wondered if we shared emotions or if there was a range of reasons why we cried.  So, I decided to start a blog for us to analyze, articulate, and share our feelings with each other.

For me, I cried as both the relief of tensions and for the joy at a new world.  In an instant, tensions that color our lives, mind, and perception were released.  In an instant, a new world had begun.

In the instant Obama was declared the winner, it felt like the ending of 8 years of Bush’s decisions, none of which feel right to me, none of which represent my values.  It felt like the end of 150 years of American oppression of black people since the Emancipation Proclamation in the 1860’s.  It felt like the end of the dark period that fell over our country when our leading lights were killed in the 1960’s – JFK, Martin Luther King, and RFK.  It felt like the end of our alienation from the rest of the world that began with the reckless invasion of Iraq based on the President lying to the country, and then justifying his lie, and not being impeached for such obvious treason because his party had a lock on Congress.*

In the instant Obama was declared the winner, the joy felt like the beginning of a leader with integrity, with openness, with great values for all the people, with every policy I ever could have wanted.  When Obama speaks, he says things that are at the tip of my mind, ideas I realize I always thought but didn’t even dare know to myself because they were so unsupported by the culture.  These ideas include nuclear disarmament, listening to and talking with people who have radically different views from ours, calmness, and analyzing ideas and plans rather than operating on emotion.  The time for this new world has come.  

I feel so happy; I feel like a kid again in my giddiness.  As they say in Hebrew, kol ha’kavod** – all of the honor and congratulations – to the esteemed Mr. Barack Obama.

I look forward to others posting about this subject.  Please let us know why you cried when Obama was declared President of the United States.

* Kol ha’Kavod, which literally translates from Hebrew as “all the respect/glory.” Kol ha’Kavod is an idiomatic expression that is used in a complimentary way to mean “thumbs up,” or “great job.”

** Surely lying to the country and sending our sons to their peril and death is what the constitution meant when it spoke of impeachable offenses, not lying over a personal sexual affair.