The Closing Argument

My mother passed away 10 years ago. She was 65 years old.

My father passed away one year ago. He was 82 years old.

Neither one of them ever had a chance to vote for a Black man for President of the United States. Even if they had lived long enough to vote for a Black man for President of the United States, I doubt they ever would have dreamed such a thing to be possible.

There are times when I barely believe it myself. 

Whenever the conversation comes up about Barack Obama (and it comes up every day), how the conversations goes depends upon whether I'm talking to a white person or a black person. The white person is unfailingly upbeat, optimistic and almost cocky in their belief Obama is going to slaughter John McCain in a stunning landslide vote.

Most Black people temper their sunny optimism with a dash of pessimism. 

By bitter experience, Black Americans are used to struggling for every advance they achieve.  This moment was paid for in the blood of Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and so many more martyrs of the Civil Rights era. We know that nothing comes easy and while Obama is so very, very close to closing the deal, most of us won't believe---won't allow ourselves to believe until we hear the words, "Barack Obama has been elected as the 44th President of the United States."

Some of us won't even believe it then.

If he wins what will it mean?

It's just like that X-Files movie that flopped this summer:  I Want To Believe.  But I'm afraid to.

I'm afraid to look at the polls.

I'm afraid to watch the talking heads on television.

I'm afraid to read the newspapers, or the magazines or the blogs.

I'm afraid to believe he's gonna win this thing.

I'm afraid to say "Yes, We Can!" when past experience reminds how many times, "No, We Can't."

There is so much potential at this moment. It's a terrible thing to think we could miss out on it and be saddled with four more years with a geezer and a calculating dingbat. What kind of cruel joke are the Republicans trying to play on us any way?

It's tempting at a time where we are literally standing on the verge of changing history to look back in time for someone that did. The obvious choice would be to look to Dr. King as Obama's campaign appears to be traveling along the way to the content of character not the color of skin idea King championed.  

Less obvious is Malcolm X who in his day would have been impressed by Obama's professional and dignified bearing, but less so with his relatively conventional and accommodating stances. 

Malcolm X said, "Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry they bring about a change."

Reality also has a nasty way of intruding on the fun. We watched with a slowly developing sense of dread as police in Chicago searched for the seven-year-old nephew of American Idol contestant and award winning actress-singer, Jennifer Hudson. When Julian King's body was found to join Hudson's murdered mother and brother the bloody circle of violence was closed. 

Against all odds and logic, I held out hope that the little boy might have survived. Hope faded.  Bleak reality intruded. Hope died.

The saddest part---the absolutely sickest part of it all---was not that even a successful young woman like Hudson could protect her family from a senseless act of violence.  Every day across the country this scenario of Black people dying uselessly and prematurely at the hands of other Black people repeats with only the names and places changing, but the details remaining depressingly the same. 

Black people have to be about the serious business of rescuing the Black community. We need to look to putting back together the family structure. We must teach our children well and to emphasize how criminality, drugs, alcohol and sex without love or responsibility defers some dreams and crushes the rest.

We have to go back to the role models of doctors, lawyers, clergy, and entrepreneurs who are obtainable, and not so much the rappers, ballers, and temporary celebrities who are not.

And yes, that includes our politicians as well.

It means getting behind Barack Obama and others like him. Not whether they're a Democrat or a Republican or liberal or conservative. Those are meaningless labels. As long as somebody is about the business of uplifting the race, I could care less about their politics.  

The countdown to the change I believe in is down to days and hours, not months and weeks.

The hope I have nurtured for my parents and all those others who didn't make it to this point still thrives. We are standing on the verge of a transformational turning point in America.

Damn, but this is an exciting time to see dreams become reality.