The Obama Inauguration - America's Quantum Leap

Hard to describe how I feel about the first black president being inaugurated. I’m not black, so I can only vaguely understand how Black Americans feel, but I'm happy for them. I hope they know how so many whites hoped and worked for this moment in history—not just the people who walked alongside them during civil rights marches—but those people who worked every day since then, in their personal and political lives, to make ‘equal opportunity for all’ not just a slogan bandied about for self-glorification, but a real living ideal, and real living condition of American reality.

I always saw something authentic and capable in the man. And when he won, I rejoiced, not only for the Democratic policies that he espoused, but because I had begun to lose faith in elections. I thought maybe the right wing media propaganda was too ubiquitous and strong. I thought maybe white Americans were too self-serving. But there it was—Change with a capital C.

The inauguration itself proved that Change to be a real thing. People wished each other well, people of all kinds. In a split second, we shed the despair and exclusion of the Bush years and began to believe again—in our power as citizens, in our ideals as Americans, in our future as hard-working innovators. It was an amazing thing to see and feel.

The nay-sayers are already out in force, and Rush Limbaugh has already called on his listeners to thwart the new president, even before Obama has taken office. We can’t let them win. We have to call out the lies and the half-truths that pepper right wing media propaganda. We have to refuse to be swayed by self-interest alone, because we already know for sure now—that way lies madness. And we have to knuckle down to the hard work of setting our country to rights, without too much grumbling, and without too much comparing at any given moment. We can do this, I know it. I know it because I saw the 2 million people gathered on the mall, every one of them representing a tiny bit of energy and intention that could help put us right. And each of them represented thousands more of that same dedicated, forward-looking momentum that can overcome just about anything. Like a rogue wave. I saw that, and I knew. This isn’t just a trend of enthusiasm—this isn’t just a fever of the moment—this is WHO WE ARE. Though we were buried so deeply in divisiveness, fear, and negativity.

God bless President Obama, and his elegant wife who will give up so much of the family’s personal time in order to help our nation. God bless those beautiful little daughters of his, who embody all that we hope for our children’s’ futures. And God bless all Americans, for the spirit they possess, for the ideals they hold dear, and for the work they have accomplished and will accomplish to make our nation even greater in the future.