Home » Barack Obama, Waking Up

Open Thread – Glorious Morning. What does this all mean to you?

By Carmen D. on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008, 10:03 am Comments

It feels good to be in love with my country right now. Oh, I always love her. But sometimes we fight and we don’t get along as well as I’d like. Even though divorce is never an option for us, right now we’re like newlyweds.

I envisioned an Obama win, but I could not have fathomed the breadth of the wind behind him. I did not imagine so many, many, many people would take taxis, wait for hours and practically crawl to get to the voting booth to cast their voice for change.

I saw it up close. One woman even came into vote in labor. Many severely disabled came in to vote too. And the very elderly, who could barely see or hold the voting pen, were determined to cast their votes as well. I am not exaggerating and I will write more about all of this later.

What I saw at the poll I supervised yesterday moved me beyond what I will ever be able to express to you in words. I got home at 12:15am after dropping off the ballots and equipment. I am still groggy and only starting to experience feelings coming up to the surface.

My first call this morning was from my beloved Mom who never thought she would see a black man elected president in her lifetime. We talked of how when she went to bury her grandmother, she could not go to the dining car on the train or drink from public water fountains because of the color of her skin. I can’t imagine what it is like to see this through that frame. But it makes me cry nonetheless.

How are YOU feeling? What was your voting experience like? Please share stories here.

  • Joanna
    Hi. First of all I am new and love this site. It is what we need. I love talking about race but never get to have an intelligent converstion about it. Race reminds me of my history and the black people we went to school with and lived near. Now it is all the Vietnamese, Africans, and Hispanics that live here who my kid asks me about. On Obama, working the campaign was a great feeling and I learned skills that I will use for Causes in the future. Each day, when I think about it, or see his picture in the paper, I smile and think to myself "That's amazing."
  • fcg#p
    And btw jp... I thought everyone was sick of the bootstrappin suck it up
    line... So, I guess it's o.k. if it applies to old white folks in their 70s huh? how's that shoe fittin' now there buddy?
  • fcg#p
    jp... if the poor huddled masses cannot take care of themselves and need the big nipple of "Dear Leader" to feed them, why should my mother be any different? his plans if he has the cajones to enact them will slam me so hard I wont be able to help my mother NO MATTER HOW HARD I WORK ! THAT IS THE POINT.. IF I EARN IT- LET ME KEEP IT!
  • JP
    Damn! fcg#p I am not as nice or as polite as Carmen or Chi Chi.

    My first thought was "Hey! Wait a minute! Where will fcg#p be when "she will become a nameless faceless number and ward of the state"? If that is the only alternative you can imagine or can come up with, blaming the government might be misplaced anger and certainly a waste of valuable time. You've created a scenario, real or imagined, that needs to be dealt with. Get with it.
  • fcg#p
    sorry car, I did not see your clarification!
  • fcg#p
    if you were paying attention to what I said and not so eager to call every elderly white person a racist you would have seen that its the capital gains taxes that they are planning to raise to 75% that are the issue and not the state of the market. no one has lost everything in the stock market.. you can make money in any market conditions the question is ..WILL THE GOVT. LET YOU KEEP IT!
  • Obama is far from a socialist - he's a Democrat. This means that he may sound (a bit) like a socialist, but acts like a moderate Republican. I didn't believe that Obama's proposed policies were that much different than McCain's, so I voted Nader.

    Obama gets flack all over the internet over supposed Marxist views - it's amazing that this red herring still gets any mileage.

    (Personally, I think it would be worth paying more in taxes to ensure that *everyone* has access to free health care. But Obama wouldn't touch that one - another triumph for the Democratic party!)
  • fcg#p AN IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION...

    the graph should have read:

    I have to agree with Chi Chi about confronting the financial fear. I have deep empathy for old and young people who have lost everything in this stock market - I know several personally.

    Knowing you as I do, I trust/believe that your mom is more afraid that Obama might be a socialist/marxist than the fact that he is black.
  • @fcg#p and Chi Chi.

    I have to agree with Chi Chi on this one. I have deep empathy for old and young people who have lost everything in this stock market - I know several personally.

    But I am confused as to why she is more afraid now than a few weeks ago when the whole house of cards (the result of deregulation gone wild and Fannie and Freddie recklessness) came tumbling down?

    And FYI, I have followed these issues very closely for YEARS and anticipated the collapse. I found Phil Gramm's exclamation (you all are whiners) downright frightening.
  • Chi Chi
    "unless you followed IN DEPTH the real players and the policy discussions and not the platitudes and stump speech generalities,..." fcg#p, you are quite right that unless you are speaking directly to these policymakers, what you read, repeat, think, write, come from a filtered space. None of us is completely objective. Most of us try to think as critically as possible to make the best decisions. All that to say is that you too do not know any more than any of the rest of us unless you are personally talking to these people.

    As far as your mother is concerned, I offered another perspective as to why she might consider death for herself based on assumptions. I trust that you are offering your mother comfort and positive thinking to allay her worst fears.
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