As Hillary Rodham Clinton concedes and endores Barack Obama, the thought quickly enters my head. "Are we ready?" I know I am, and I would vote for any Democrat these days due to rising gas prices and an even steeper cost of college. Though, as a senior in High School I begin to look out across my lunch room and see the still segregated tables. While this country is integrated, I don't think we will ever fully embrace one another.
I have to say, I'm not the biggest advocate of acceptance of race or ethnicity, but if you fight for what you believe in, if you believe that you are going to change the way the world runs for the better, I am your biggest companion. This is what Obama does for me, he doesn't use the race card to get him elected, instead he uses his positions to get him elected.
As time goes on, we begin to lose faith in who we are, and what we are as a country. Founded on principals of freedom, only in the 21st centuary to get them raped from us, and from our countrymen. No matter your political party, no matter your race, no matter your religion, we must unite on a cold Tuesday in November, for this country, for the world.
No matter if you believe in the policies of John McCain, or Barack Obama, we must understand what is needed of this country in the forthcoming years. We must understand that we must use our given rights as citizens to vote, and we must these wisely and believe when we punch that button in our fake voting machines that eventually will turn into the other party, we are pressing for someone we believe in that will change this country for the better.
You as an individual do not have to contribute to a campaign, do not have to volunteer for a campaign, but you an individual have to vote. You have to, even if it may not count, or your ass backwards Electorial College switches your votes, you still need to exhibit your right, and keep this country rolling.
In the end, we are all lost, but we have a common thread. We are Americans, and no Muslim, no oil junky, no crackhead can take that from us, and no one ever will if you believe in this nation and believe in your right to vote.
I've been catching up on Broo today, and thinking of how to respond to your article, particularly because while your headline draws the reader in, for sure, it also makes the hairs on the back on my neck stand up -- why? well, in my other window is The Nation, drawing immediate attention to the fact that Condaleeza Rice is, unmistakeably, also Black. Yet I do not think she will be voting for Obama, nor do I think that skin color is the issue at hand in relation to his (or anyone's) politics much of the time, when the question just under the surface is in fact CLASS.
I absolutely don't have the answer to how to deal with the race/class conflation and how troubling it is on the large scale, but luckily I have over 300 students a year from over 60 countries and backgrounds, and together we sit and muck out these issues. I don't know if I can trust any larger pronouncements by myself or others about "what it's about" because our beliefs become true by our acting them out and simply via believing, so much of the time... sigh. Hopefully, the complications and conversations that come out surrounding race due to Obama's skin color (and Hillary's lack of a Y chromosome) will be productive in the long run, even if they serve to obfuscate the core of many operational issues at hand.
On the other hand, kudos for being a senior in HS and getting your work out there. Go to it!