Voices on Election 2008

I invited friends on Facebook and through email to offer their musings about this election season. This will be a growing collection of voices over the next couple of days. Here are the unedited offerings (feel free to add your comments):

In a word! Amazing!! I don't think I going to get to sleep tonight. I live in a Republican territory and I went running around the neighborhood wearing my Obama t-shirt chanting O-Bam-A, O-Bam-A. I called my mother and father and screamed on the phone to them. They were on Pennsylvania Avenue outside of the White House with noise maker. They are 76 years young. I called my brother, Willie and told him he was wrong, "This is what it means to be Black in America." I called my college friends, my high school friends, my European friends overseas. Hell I even called my friend Eric, who is President George W. Bush's personal photographer and told him he was out of a job!

-- KM, Ventura County

On TV, my hometown of Bloomington is one blue pixel in the red screen of Indiana. My mom is excited that Indiana is "in play," but I don't expect it to vote blue (i.e., for a Democrat). The mass electric energy of the voters, especially first time voters, reminds me war protests and rock concerts. Democracy is so much bigger than any individual. Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States!

-- Cedar Boschan, Southern California

Timeline: Hope. Fear. Maybe. Perhaps. Wishing. Anger. Weariness. Exasperation. Anguish. Democrats piss me off. Black people piss me off. The Clintons piss me off. The media pisses me off. Hope again. Black people reinspired me. Intellectualism has reinspired me. The concept is bigger than one man. Yet one man stands as its symbol. Now its a celebration. But I'm still a little scared. What will *we* do. Each of us.

-- Anonymous, Atlanta, GA

I woke up early this morning, and made my way down to the polling location just a block over from where I live. There was a short line that fed itself into the apartment complex in West Hollywood that the polls were at. The line grew rapidly with a thickness and a quickness. As I ambled in lazily, while glancing at my watch to make sure I could still get to work, I saw countless hopeful faces. I even bumped into my friend, Pollyanna, from high school, who had somehow gotten there earlier than myself. It was ramshackle and somewhat primitive technologically, but I feel good. I hope that my vote is counted, and I hope it all works out. I believe in Hope... and hopefully it will prevail! And yes, it's a beautiful day in LA... get out there people!

-- RA, West Hollywood

The sun is up, the clouds are parting and for the first time in any election I can remember, lines at polling places are already forming. Even this (glorious) unseasonable rain adds to the feeling that something extraordinary is happening today.

-- VT, Malibu

This election season showed women their day in the White House is coming। It also inspired minorities, people from broken families, and difficult economic circumstances that with talent and tenacity America is still a place where you can live your dreams। It showed a grassroots movement spurred along by five and ten dollar donations and the internet can topple the establishment। No matter who wins tomorrow night, hope has already triumphed in so many ways। Let's hope this historic moment is a turning point that leaves Americans better off in four years!

--NG, Los Angeles

It's almost here!!! I can barely stand to go to work tomorrow or Wednesday। I want to scream and shout। Or maybe it will be stolen away. I was even paranoid about which mailbox to put my ballot in for fear that the mailman might know who I'm voting for and throw my ballot away! I made a copy of my ballot and framed it. Maybe I will frame the Nov 5th paper too. And I've been praying like crazy for Barack. For his safety and that of his family. It is bittersweet. Mom (and Dad) would have been so excited. But I'm here and I'm going to celebrate hard enough for all three of us!

--DAWA, Union City

I felt tonight, while driving around my neighborhood, like I did on Christmas Eve as a kid. I feel like Santa is coming tomorrow.

-- LK, Pasadena

Many of us live our lives with an understanding of what's possible -- where the limits are on the horizons and skies into which we venture। We know how high we can aim, even if we can't articulate or acknowledge it। I know I've learned over the years to manage my expectations even as I pushed ahead into any arena I wanted to enter। This dream management was so pervasive that I couldn't even dare to imagine what I knew to be impossible. I couldn't dare because to be disappointed by a dream deferred, denied, would sting more than never having dreamed at all. Whether it is woman, brown or blended, the wings we have been allowed to soar on were borrowed and would be rescinded if we dared soar too high. Only if your existence has been shaped by invisible and arbitrary boundaries can you know the inexplicably overwhelming feeling it is to be proved wrong, to find that those boundaries that have shaped your understanding of your world, to which you and the world you occupy have on occasion inadvertently clung, cease to exist. It changes your eyes, your head, your heart, your life.

--CM, Glendale

This election is historic. I marvel at what we are witnessing, and feel bowled over by the probability that Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. I never thought a Black person, much less a Black man could be President of this country, at least not in my lifetime. So, his candidacy (in my mind) has challenged us all to face the obstacles we've come across as a community with a view to transcend them. It doesn't make everything perfect and certainly doesn't end racism, but Barack's candidacy represents a huge leap in our consciousness, affirming loudly "yes we can," no matter how many times we've been told the opposite. We are a people that have long survived against the odds, and our legacy of triumph over tragedy is not new, still I don't think we saw this coming. I suspect many of us are in awe of Barack and his family, just think we may finally get the chance to paint the white house Black (smile). Seriously, though we can't take this historic moment lightly, a Black man will likely be President - amazing! This is definitely part of what Martin, Malcolm and countless others lived and died for. Yet, with all that said I am not voting for him because he is Black, if that were the case I would have voted for Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, but I am voting for him because he is the best person for the job. Barack Obama is educated, eloquent, analytical, compassionate and human. I am confident he will represent my views better than any other candidate and will work to improve healthcare, education, foreign policy, and immigration, not to mention end the war in Iraq, and the fact that he's Black is just the icing on the cake. I am excited and energized, and look forward to voting for the first time for Barack Obama. In closing, I can't help but thinking of the women and men who lived Jim Crow, marched with Dr. King, and followed the teachings of Malcolm X, they must be overcome with pride and elated at the prospect of an Obama presidency. I won't forget them tomorrow as I cast my vote.

--DR, Stanford

As the mother of two children of color, Senator Obama's candidacy (and real shot at winning) means I no longer feel like a liar when I tell my kids they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. As the mother of two beautiful children of color, I simply cannot convey how POWERFUL the images of the Obama girls playing on the White House lawn will be (just got chills, people). The facts: our first 16 presidents could have owned Barack Obama as property; our first 30 "First Ladies" could not vote for their own husbands. How can we not be filled with wonder at this historic moment we find ourselves living in? I've been with Barack since day one (and got called out by some feminist sisters during the primary season, for sure); tonight, I'm exhausted, excited, filled with pride, HOPE, and some trepidation, too. I'm superstitious by nature, but I won't lie, the champagne is already on ice! Let's revel in this historic day and remember to toast our ancestors and elders who brought us "to the mountaintop" with their blood, tears, and often with their very lives.

-- DD, Northern California