Black men voicing change

I have been fascinated by a number of Black men speaking on public radio about the change they should make since Barack Obama was elected our 44th president. They have said things like, "It's time for [Black men] to step up now. The whole world is watching us." "We have got to get ourselves together. Time to pull up the pants and get busy."

Other colleagues and friends I have talked with have heard the same things, with similar modest awe, jsut as we have responded to so many political and social implications that have surrounded Sen. Obama's presence in the election beginning on that February day in Springfield when he declared his candidacy for the highest office in this land.

This morning, on NBC's The Chris Matthews Show, NPR journalist Michelle Norris said that, in addition to the big picture change, she was hearing about change at the street level, change in Black men in light of Obama’s election.

Michele said that at the barbershop one barber said there were already 12 men who had come in to have their dreads cut off. Others are pulling up their pants.

Typical of a lot of mainstream coverage of the election, Chris Matthews weighed in with a off-target interpretation of Black men's behavior.

Matthews responded by saying, “Yes, they are ready to invest in America.”

Michelle Norris corrected Matthews analysis, saying, “They feel America has invested in them.”

The challenges President-elect Barack Obama faces loom large, none larger than dealing with the economy. But I think Obama was prophetic when he said in the last debate against Sen. McCain that it is often the challenges or threats that a president cannot anticipate that end up shaping his presidency the most.

Poverty, deep cultural disillusion and divide, urban violence, the state of our public schools--including the strength of our families and their commitmet to academic excellence of their children--are in the mix of the bubbling cauldron underneath the big picture issues. These issues are also America's infrastructure and will have to be revitalized and redeemed in order to call this nation back from edge of the economic or military gloom threatening over our heads. As president, Barack Obama will have to engage his considerable diplomacy to lead this nation across these fault lines. This is our time to bridge these longstanding chasms in our country, and we can, if Obama was right, that "we are the ones we have been waiting for."

Making Change

Journalist and CNN commentator Roland Martin challenged an audience in Hartford, CT on Friday, November 15th to follow through on a slogan of the Presidential campaign in which Obama would say to his supporters, "we are the ones we have been waiting for."

Martin asked the audience members what change they are committed to making in their homes, neighborhoods, community? When President-elect Obama takes the oath of President of the United States, Martin asked, "what oath will you take on January 20th" to bring about change?

"The only people who get what they want are the people who believe," Martin said.

How will you take a personal role in bringing about the "change" promoted by President-elect Barack Obama?

First thoughts on Barack Obama elected President

Barack Obama elected president

Two years of ardent support, hope, desire and belief culminated in those four simple but profound words blazoned across a television screen shortly after 11 p.m. last night.

It was those words that connected this long and improbable campaign, as Obama might call it, this noble and righteous crusade, to win the official title and more, the immensity of the Office of President of the United States.

What is impressive about Obama's election victory is the broad coalition of persons who supported him. An overwhelming African American vote certainly, about 95%, but also and for the first time, a monumental percentage of white voters stood for an African American candidate, even though a venerable white candidate was his opposition. Obama garnered an estimated 43% of the white vote. That percentage was not the majority, but it represents a long-awaited maturing of the white electorate who finally put off the long cloak of knee-jerk racial prejudice to actually deliberate on the choice they had between Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama. And not only deliberate but act with courage on their convictions.

In this regard, Sen. Obama's victory is as much a transformative moment for white Americans as for Black Americans.

Afterall, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream for his four children "to one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" was a liberation dream for white Americans to transcend the bondage of bigotry and to act on the democratic ideals of America's founding fathers who declared that "all men are created equal."

Additionally, part of Sen. Obama's broad coalition included about 66% of Latino votes, according to news reports, as well as boosts from younger voters, white women, including those Hillary Clinton dubbed "18 million cracks" in the glass ceiling.

So Sen. Obama's sustained and successful coaltion has already proven the viability of his most appealing platform for me, which is that we are not a nation of blue and red states, but we are the United States of America. And that American are in the fight together to improve our country and to be a positive influence beyond our borders.

On that fundamental premise President Obama must lead our nation, and among the priorities of his sdministation must be a reform and revival of public school education in this country. Tackling that behemoth will be a test of Sen. Obama's vision for domestic change. That's because the factors involved in rescuing public school education include a renewal of family values, respect and inclusion of cultural identity, equitable funding, eradicating the plague of social ills visited by high unemployment, drug abuse, poor housing, inadequate health care, and the lack of political will to champion a fair and balanced curriculum and a standard of accountability among all stakeholders in public education.

Across these issues are drawn the deeply entrenched lines of racial and class divide that lie yet unchanged beneath the euphoria of this justifiably proud stage in America's maturing democracy.

The hope now is that President Obama will lead us across these lines -- and that Americans of all stripes who enthusiastically supported his candidacy will follow his direction, and when necessary, even help to lead us further across divides into a truly free and fair democratic Promised Land.

Early bird voters

Voters lined up in New Haven, and by now in every state in the nation, to cast their ballots in this historic election 2008.
Two educators, Lensley Gay and Susan Monroe, arrived at their polling center before 6:00 a.m. in Westville, well before the school day began in order to participate in the expected record-setting turnout, projected at 130 million total voters by the day's end.
Susan said that she was determined to get out early to vote, and Lensley encouraged everyone to "keep praying" through the day.
The mood among voters on this early morning could be described as subdued enthusiasm. They huddled closely to one another in a single file line, drawn to each others' warmth, and sense of unity, in the hazy, dew-laden school parking lot.