Last night as I sat glued to my TV watching Barack Obama acknowledging his history making ascension to the Democratic Party's nomination for President, I was overwhelmed.
Here we are in 2008 and there is a very good chance that the next President of the United States could be an African American man. I am nothing less than astonished. I'm astonished and tremendously proud to be an American on this day. The majority of Democratic voters were able to look [for the most part] past race and they were able to vote for a Black man. WOW! Way to go America!
I was on the edge of my seat for the whole speech. My wife and I were exchanging high-fives and clapping and giving our love to Barack Obama and the future of hope and optimism that we pray he brings. Then he finished with a couple of "God Bless America's" and then suddenly my whole perspective on the night's events changed. Michelle Obama took the stage with her husband.
I have become quite a Michelle Obama fan over the last year or so. I think that she is a very dynamic, intelligent and downright likeable person. For Barack Obama to have captured the heart of a woman like her, it says a lot about his character, and I admire the relationship the two of them appear to have. That is why my perspective changed. Michelle did not appear to be her usual happy and cheerful "potential future-first-lady" self, she looked worried.
She tried to hide it, that stunned, worried look that people get when their spouses step into harms way. It was the look of spouses that kiss their loved ones goodbye before they head off to war. It was the same look that I imagine police officers and fire-fighters spouses give their loved ones when they leave for work. It was the look I assume Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz gave their husbands when they went out to change the world.
I have an optimistic streak deep within me, it is in this streak that I believe Barack Obama will change the world, I believe that he will beat John McCain and move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and he'll do amazing things and he'll grow old and gray and write memoirs and give lectures and be an American icon for generations. But, my optimism aside, we live in a world of fanatics, lunatics, racists and hate mongers. We live in a world of danger.
I think this is why My Girl - Michelle looked a little worried last night. She's given us her husband. She's allowed... YES allowed... our country to have a chance for renewed greatness on the back and shoulders of her best friend, her husband, her man, [in her own words] her babies DADDY. She's a smart woman, she knows the dangers that powerful people face, she knows the dangers that powerful men face, she knows the dangers that powerful Black men face - and yet, she's allowed her husband to try and improve our lives.
In all the wonderful and deserved Barack Obama hype that we are now celebrating, let us not forget Michelle. Let us not forget that behind every good man there is an even better woman.
LUV U OBAMA'S!!!!!!!!!!!
TTBM
