Certainly when it comes to the 2008 presidential election senator Barack Obama is at the top of the list. Barack Obama was the fifth African American senator in the united state’s history and the only African American currently serving in the United States Senate. Senator Obama had just served three years in the Senate in Illinois before his announcement to run for the presidency. But after November 3, 2008, America Brought about change and for the first time in American history elected the first African American president, Barack Obama. In my opinion, he is a highly motivated speaker and is an advocate for a better America. President Obama was a candidate that branched out to all political parties. Upon reading me Obama book CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN I came across some interesting policies and political challenges that we as Americans are facing in this critical time.
The main political view that drew my attention was that precedent’s Obama plan to strengthen civil rights and fight for a fairer justice system, end racial profiling and protect the right to vote just reminded one’s self of all the injustices that we as a nation still have to overcome. The American people could have not nominated a better man. Barack Obama’s record speaks for itself. President Obama has worked to promote civil right and fairness in the criminal justice system throughout his career. As a community organizer, Obama helped 150,000 African Americans register to vote. As a civil rights attorney, Obama litigated employment discrimination, housing discrimination, and voting right cases. As a senator, Obama passed one of the countries first racial profiling laws he has been a leading advocate in protecting the rights to vote and helping to reauthorize the voting rights act and leading opposition against discriminatory barriers to vote and will work to enforce civil right laws.
All of this you ask. How or what does the election of Barack Obama, the first African-American President, means to me and my family.
“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, Today is your answer” President-Elect Barack Obama could not have said it better. When he talked about all the people who had hopes for this nation, being the rich and the poor the Democrats and the Republicans, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay striate, disabled and not disabled. ALL PEOPLE. This change has been a change that has affected the entire world. Not just for this nation, This has sent a message to all the world that we are a great people.
I came from a dominant white family growing up, in a town where I had never seen any African American people. My family had no ties to any black African Americans at all. So as I grew up, I grew up in a very poor neighborhood. I can remember my parents saying something about a big recession and I can remember President Regan. I never really paid attention, probably because I was a kid who didn’t care. I do remember growing up poor though. My parents had a hard time when we got sick. We didn’t have medical cards, because we were poor that we could just go to the doctor. We just didn’t go. My mother was a kind of an old witch doctor. She would give us all kinds of tinctures and herbal remedies she grew in her garden. This was not because she wanted too but because of necessity. Health care has been bad in our nation for some time. I believe I was eight and now I am 40 and we still have the same maybe even worse health care problems. Instead of it costing 25.00 to see a physician it costs 75.00 and without insurance, the office wants payment up front. It’s not just the doctors and physicians. The drug companies are horrendous also. If you are elderly or on a fixed income, it is almost impossible to purchase medication that costs 120.00 per bottle. Sure Walmart has 200 prescriptions for four dollars each but how often can you be so lucky to get the ones on their lists. It’s not just the medical field. It’s the gas industry, the auto industry, the electric companies the gas companies, the housing industries. People left and right are losing their homes to foreclosures. Our economy is in turmoil our recession is the deepest it’s been in 30 years. And this all affects me and my family and friends.
Out of the blue, we have a presidential nominee who is from a lowly birth, A son of a single mother, who grew up raised by his grandmother. Like so many other ordinary poor Americans, and who, just so happens to be biracial. I know the papers and media relate to President Barack Obama as a Black Man, but in reality, he is Mixed.
Now in my adult life, this means everything to me. Ten years ago I met an African-American Man whom I found I had more in common with than any one man, white or black. I had been married to a man with a mental illness for 12 years and suffered from poverty and lack of medical treatment for him. Finally, after 12 years I could not deal with the problems of being indigent and nomadic, moving from one town to another, poor and dragging my children with me, one school after another. I finally settled down and decided to stay. I got a home in a local low-income housing program where my rent was free and I was given a supplement for the utilities. I had four daughters whom I worried about mentally, physically and emotionally. All was working well for me. Then I met Lee, a Black man one of the only Black men in my town. At the time there were only two living in this small very racist town of about 3,000 people. I tried to have Lee move in with me the housing program administrator made every effort to keep Lee from moving into my house with me. Finally, I was evicted because he was caught on my property by a neighbor who told. All this for his being black. We moved to another house in the same town. After being together for several years we decided to get married. In turn, we then had four children together. Going through all of this, was the one thought, how will my children be accepted, Will my children be accepted. Especially in this town. Year by year more Blacks have moved into my town and the acceptance is growing. My children go to school with six other mixed interracial black/white children.
The interracial problems in our society as I see it depends a little on where you live. If you live in the southern states, the racist problems are high. Both for black and for white. For Mixed interracial children are still looked down upon, treated as not equal in mental abilities as white Caucasian children. We like to think that we have gotten past this element of racism but it truly exists. And for me, I didn’t see it until I had mixed children and married a Black man myself. I have been turned down for jobs, turned away from churches, friends have turned me away for being with a black man. Even my own family has turned me away first because of my choice to marry a black man, second because of my choice to have children with him.
Our society has come along way from the days of Slavery, but some of the same old feelings and ideas still exist segregation still exists in different forms.
Now in the 2008 Presidential Election, we have a Mixed interracial nominee who talks about all the problems in our society, he understands how it is to be poor. To scrape for food, to fight for heat in the winter, to stand in long lines for food, and medical care. Not just for the poor but for the elderly and for all of our nation’s people. We NEED a change. We need some kind of a monumental movement to push us in a new direction as a nation and as a people. What kind of a society will my children grow up in? I won’t be here forever. How will my daughter and my son be treated in school and in society as an interracial American? For this has plagued me since I found out I was expecting them. Now as the Elected President Barack Obama, we as a nation have overlooked his color, herd his words of encouragement and hoped that this Man of color can take us into a new generation of Pride in ourselves, overlooking the color of one’s skin, to come together as a nation and as a people. Whether Barack Obama is for you or not, the message is for everyone. Get involved, believe you can make a difference.
Let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other. In all of this, it is my hope that we made the right choice. This is how I believe that. The election of Barack Obama has affected me and my family, and also my nation.