President Obama

Thinking About the President

What does this mean for me
A woman a brown woman in this time
Where can I go now today two days after this historic moment
How does it change my place in society?

I woke up early
Jitters like Christmas
Kept me up election eve
Cast my vote into the box
Not climactic
Like the monumental feat ahead

What does this mean for us? Black President.
Mr. President Barack Obama. Two red lines beneath these words
like they aren’t words
or the name of a man who united a nation.

She said, “I never thought I would live to see this”
I can’t hold back my tears everytime I hear that
Which is often.
One of my students read a poem,
Maybe her head isn’t wrapped around the issues
But her heart knows this is different,
This politics is different
And undeniable.


That night, I was with a huge crowd at the War Room, with some good friends of mine, enjoying free ice cream and dressed for the occasion. I couldn't believe my eyes when the screen read 200. Only 70 to go and it was easy...the reason I live on the West Coast...
When we heard the news, saw the news, I couldn't help but cheer and cry. As a brown girl I have only ever been disenchanted with out government, with the way that people who look like me, people who, like my parents, live paycheck to paycheck, are treated by those in power. That government means POWER. power over.
I know my mom is jaded over all of this. She thought Obama was a reverse-racists, that he doesn't like white people. She is always undecided, never convinced. To her, all politicians are dirty and sleezy. Which has always been the case. Is it naive to think Obama is any different? Because I believe he is. And thousands of people who filled the streets of Capital Hill and Downtown Seattle seemed to believe that we are heading in a better direction, that this election really means something for us who are brown, or who can barely make rent, but choose to live in cities because we can be ourselves and not have to deal with others' moral influences.
I am beyond words for the real feeling I have, that I can look to someone who looks like me, to even think we are moving as a country...or 52% of a country...that knows we are capable. Because we have always known!