2 posts tagged “obama”
On November 4th 2008, Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States of America.
I cannot tell you how many emotions come up for me when I type those words. Early the morning after the election, I read every possible newspaper, scanned every news web site; anything that would reinforce that it really happened, and that it was not being taken away.
I did this because I know his victory means more than an African-American serving in our nation's highest political office for the first time. While that is incredibly significant, even more meaningful to me is how it will inspire an entire generation of minorities to know what is possible for them in this country even if they still have to swim against the current of racism. They will grow up with this realized possibility as an actual part of society, not what society should be or what we hope it could be. And in that, they will achieve far more than what we have even projected onto Obama himself.
But while I celebrated this momentous victory in the battle for equality as a huge step forward for this country, I was deeply saddened by the passing of Prop 8 which took us a step back.
My friend Steve from high school was visiting this past week and we dug up writings of ours from almost two decades ago. I found an editorial I wrote for my college newspaper in 1991. It was in response to a motion led by a Christian conservative student group who was trying to cut school funding for the Gay & Lesbian student group. As you can imagine, there were several student groups on campus such as Asian, African-American, Latino, etc. But the groups lobbying for the funding cut argued that gays and lesbians weren't really minorities and didn't deserve the associated funding.
The original editorial from 1991 is below and in reading it over again, I felt sad to see that we're still having this debate of whether gays and lesbians should have the same rights afforded to them as everyone else. I truly hope the generation I wrote about is not too far away.
So when Obama took Iowa, I was first very surprised -and then truly inspired. I felt hope for him and for this country.
As he continued to gain momentum through the primaries, I wanted to raise support for his campaign beyond my warm thoughts and good intention. My initial attempts at fund-raising through my personal Obama fund-raiser page were meager at best. Then it hit me that all the fund-raising with which I am familiar involved friends, food, drinks, and music. Obama-Rama was born.
I conspired with Anita and Beth G and hosted a fund-raiser party at my place on March 15th. It was really a blast, over 60 people attended and we had costumes, costume contests, all types of Obama-themed prizes and decorations, lots of amazing food and great music. Shahid dropped a rhyme and Rob's DJ set which sampled Obama quotes was fantastic. It really went off well and importantly, we raised $600 in cash toward the campaign. Pics from that night can be found here.
If you haven't heard Obama's speech on race, I highly recommend you check it out. It is an insightful, genuine, open, and courageous exploration of a topic most politicians have eschewed for decades; and exhibits all the qualities I admire in this man.
