Picking up the pieces.

In the early hours of November 5th 2008 the United States celebrated as Illinois Senator Barack Obama became the first Black President/Prime Minister in all of western society. The world marveled at the wonder that was America and saw in it something that for the last decade had been forgotten; the idea that in America a person can come from nothing and rise to lead the world. I, myself had to take a moment and contemplate the significance of the event and take in the reinforced feeling of pride I had in my country. Around me my parents, my grandmother, my aunts and uncles and even some of my cousins began to wipe the tears from their eyes when the words President Elect Barack Obama flashed on to the tv screen. My grandmother was crying particularly hard and without words I knew why. She had lived during a time where neither blacks or women had the right to vote, a time where she would never expect to be more than a maid or a factory worker, a time where hoping for more than what you had was almost a sin; she had lived through all of it and lived long enough to see someone like her become the leader of our great nation.




That night we celebrated the progress of the United States and celebrated a historic victory for equality in the world. But that morning our naivete became clear. In my grandmothers front yard were the remnants of her Obama 08 sign and spray painted on her car was the word Nigger. The grim reality that even though the United States elected a black man to the highest office in the land, that the world itself hadn't changed. Her house wasn't the only one. There were other homes in the neighborhood that were vandalized and it would be an understatement to say that people were upset. But my grandmother, in her bedroom slippers, walked out to the lawn and began to pick up the pieces of her sign smiling. At dinner later that week we asked her how she could be smiling after everything that had happened. She said "Wasn't no pieces of paper gettin me wound up that day." My grandmother's always been that way but I know that I didn't inherit her patience. It's hard for me at times to turn the other cheek and not want to lash out at the severe injustice that still exists in the world today. But my grandmother's example makes me start to think that maybe I should start picking my battles and not place the burden upon myself to pick up the mantle of every claim of inequality. But at the same time there's something else in me that won't let me walk away for fear that no one will take my place.