The Day After

It seems so quiet outside. I think even nature realizes that the debates, endless TV ads, ubiquitous polls and pundits are finally at rest. My husband taped Obama's victory speech for me and I watched it tonight after dinner. I thrilled to the resounding, "Yes we can!" by the thousands gathered to celebrate his election. Obama brings such hope to our bereft and compromised table.
I wish all of us shared this euphoria or even a little bit of the optimism. The election was not about race to me and to many in the region where I live. We stood in line together yesterday -- an extremely diverse group with the commonality of being able to vote; sharing the excitement in choosing a new president. We counted the minutes together, and laughed and talked about a new spirit, and that we were witnesses to -- no, participants -- in the making of history.
I'm not naive enough to think this happiness is universal as I know for a fact it is not. A friend who lives in a state in the Deep South told me she has never heard the "n word" (sorry, I can't even write it...) as much as she has in the past three days. I know about the South (not that racism is indigenous only to that part of the county), and about carpetbaggers, and lynchings, marches, and hatred that comes from destitution and injustice, but I thought that this was a part of our past, that we as a nation of immigrants (let's face it: how many of our ancestors were actually born here??) could finally look past color and we could begin to judge people 'not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.' And so my happiness and hope are tinged with a bit of sadness and disbelief that bigotry still exists.