By the Content of My Character?

Okay, the presidential honeymoon is over! President Obama has not left the limelight for a minute but not all
of us are enamored with him anymore—his charisma! What can I say? I liked the guy like everyone else did in the beginning. The celebration has ended so that we can focus on the president as the president and not the new Black leader? He himself does not think of himself as a Black president. I mean come on, if you are the president of the United States of America you have to have a huge ego. I don’t think that he would limit himself to a mere group of 40 million plus people. So, why do some, especially Blacks, to keep focusing on his Black status? I will tell you why I think.

President Obama represents to so many people the culmination of years of hope and suffering into the fruit of acknowledgment. The fact that a minority can get a party nomination was astounding to many. Then to actually win the election by a huge margin the first time and a decent one the second time--and to win a second time!!!!! Oh, it has been a party for many elderly African Americans each year of the president's reign.

Now,the older generation has exhaled. What does our younger generations have to benefit from this? You know the 30 somethings and 20 somethings and registered teens? What great things is this presidency that makes so many young people celebrate. And oh, it is not just the young African Americans. It is all young people across those racial boundaries.

We have been spoon feed many years about how crappy the government is and how there needs to be a change. We have not experienced racism or offered it to the extent our parents may have. Some of us would fain that we have, but seriously, those who have been in a racist situation probably had just a one time or incidental episode. Racism still occurs but not as blatantly as before. We wanted a change with Washington and Obama said he would do it. Now we have him! (Even though I did not vote for him either time, but I still like him.)

So, we have started paying attention to him as a president? As soon as something went wrong, the honeymoon was over, and we are at his throat like we have been at the throat of other presidents. After first we seemed to be in the mind of slapping his hand having the mentality of “poor minority, you don’t know any better because your race is new to politics of this level.” Or even worse, some thought “look what happens when you let the minorities play in big politics. They screw things up!”

Things are different. Obama’s first term was eventful. The healthcare law shook things up the first term and part of the second until it was put into law to become a reality. All things work out and we can move past the race barriers for President Obama. We are finally enlightened enough as a nation to say we can see past race, for now anyway. No one judges Bush by his race for his mistakes. Obama will get the same treatment?