You have to understand that my perspective is somewhat odd – a white girl from the 50’s. I grew up with (not during, not in) the 60’s in a Republican house. I’m a lesbian, whose parents knew and were torn between pride and shame. I do not fit most stereotypes. So I grew up alongside moments, not really ever part of them.
I’m reading the latest Newsweek magazine, and it has a moving quote from Booker T. Washington and it’s dated 1901. Then it hits me between the eyes when it says that “in historical terms, Selma was only the day before yesterday, Sumter the day before that”. I’m a history student, and have focused on the Civil War numerous times in my life. Knowing the political reasons behind the War, and the times leading up to it, you realize the current movement is a reflection of so much more than someone of a race other than Caucasian being in the White House. Being born in the 50’s means that 1901 isn’t “that far back”, and the current date isn’t out of perspective. Kind of like it felt to know someone in their 60’s when you were in your 30’s, and they had seen so much and experienced the same points in time in so many different ways.
Barack’s Different.
But that doesn’t make him “my” president.
That’s what it means to this perspective, this statistic that will not be looked for amongst all the studies and statistics being currently run. I and my sisters will be a side pot-shot by alarmist and separatist blowhards on radio and television. We’ll become a thing again, and not a person.
Yes, Martin Luther King Jr. and his message of peace took longer to get to most of us than it did in a third world country being held down by the Mother Country. (Was that us, or was it India?) but no one wants to know what it means to someone like me. It really doesn’t mean anything to Me. Unless he fixes the economy, and makes things more fair, and cleaner. Then his election and administration mean a lot to Me.
We’ll wait. Again. And we’ll see. There are quite a lot of Us, watching and waiting.
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