It occurs to me that in the last 90 days, the mainstream media (MSM) has broadcast more positive images of the American black man than at any time since the late 1980’s when The Cosby Show was airing original episodes and in syndication simultaneously. On top of Obama’s screen time, I’ve seen more black male pundits speaking about America than ever before. Barack Obama’s candidacy has broadened the way America sees the American black male, decisively and in a way that I believe is permanent.

Some of you may remember the television series “Family Affair.” Airing in the late 60’s, it chronicled the topsy turvy life and times of a successful engineer bachelor who takes in three children after a family member dies. In one of the episodes, the little boy orphan Jody sings this song:

“Any boy can be president, can be president, of the United States, United States of America, land of the free.”

I still remember the first time I heard Jody sing that song in the late 60’s. I think it was a little traumatic for me. Even then, as young a child, I thought “That’s such a lie. No Afro-American can be a president. They’d kill him.” Even at that young age, although I was being raised in a home where I was constantly told that “You can be anything. You can do anything,” I had absorbed the limitations of fear from outside references and recent history. I guess in some way, I felt that Dr. Martin Luther King was a president, too and that he had been assassinated just like President John F. Kennedy. After all, both of their portraits hung proudly in our Section 8 apartment, displayed in regal but simple gold frames on the wall of my Grandmother’s bedroom.

Years later, that song would drift into my head when I cast my primary vote for Jesse Jackson in his run for the presidency in 1984. I cast that vote while at Yale (my polling place was a lecture hall) and remember feeling reluctant to talk about my vote with anyone. Overall, I was not very involved in politics at the time; I was all about the theoretical study of economics and economic systems. Sure, I lived politics as I did plenty of volunteer work and tutored kids from the New Haven area daily, but during college I didn’t read the newspaper, there was no access television and this was WAY before internet access.

When Barack Obama announced his candidacy, I heard Jody singing that song again, in my head. At the time he announced, I was skeptical about Obama as a candidate even though I was torn about Hillary. Still, I remember early on arguing with the older ladies in the black beauty shop where I get my afro twists sometimes. I was trying to calm their fears about Obama being assassinated. I could not assure them that this would not happen, of course, but I talked about “dying on your feet, not living on your knees,” and reminded them that this is why they fought Jim Crow and fought through the violent times of voter registration drives and civil rights protests. I could never calm them completely, but they listened intently and laughed at my (only in comparison) youthful passion.

And so, some months later here we are. The 8-year old Jewish daughter of one of my dearest friends is pro-Obama, even though her mom supports Hillary. Merrilee (a pseudonym) knows that Obama would be America’s first black president, and that Hillary would be America’s first woman president. She knows these facts, but they make no difference to her, these are simply unremarkable factoids. She thinks “Of course a black man can be president. Of course a woman can be president. Why not?” And that is a bright facet of Barack Obama’s candidacy. Children of all colors now see, in a real tangible way, that black people are an integral thread in the fabric of our American tapestry. They see that we are all in this together. When any of these kids hear Jody’s song, it will not make them sad.