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."