NATIONAL BLACK PRESIDENT SPECIAL CHRISTMAS DAY

From the archives

From my old blog, 2008. This is a strange piece to look back on from the vantage point of 2025, living in a country I no longer respect, alongside a citizenry I no longer trust. It’s easy to view the jubilation of this time as an expression of mass naiveté. Certainly no one could have expected the severity of the backlash from the right, a retaliation, it is now clear, not merely to Obama or even the 1960s counterculture, but to the gains made by humanity during the Renaissance. Once again; oops.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Nov. 5 - A vibrating cell phone woke me at 7:21. It was Rik, my friend and former coworker at the Claremont video store where I work part time. Rik texted feels great today, like in Star Wars 3 when Luke Skywalker defeated the Republic and the entire galaxy was celebrating. It took a moment to figure out that I wasn’t irritated at being roused, another moment to remember that Barack Obama had been elected president of the United States. The closest emotional template for this feeling would have to be waking on Christmas morning. For those of us not running for First Lady, it seems safe to call it for what it is: Late Onset Patriotism. For the first time in my adult life, I’m actually proud of my country.

There are auxiliary lumps of relief. The end of the victory speech was almost as satisfying as the victory itself. As soon as Obama stepped off the stage at Grant Park, he entered the invisible cloud of presidential protection that makes him exponentially more bullet-proof. He has four more years before having to plunge back into another Dawn Of The Dead crowd of outstretched arms. The two Tennessee skinheads who plotted a shoot-out in tuxedos and top hats will have to content themselves with writing angry letters to the Memphis Daily News. It’s over.