I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.
-Barack Obama 2012 Victory Speech
As I watched Barack Obama’s victory speech from my college apartment on that Tuesday night, I breathed a sigh of relief, not just because the election season was finally coming to a close, but because America has finally got it right. When the founders of this great nation set out and created this country, they used an ideal that they themselves could not fully implement, an ideal that we are still striving to achieve today, the idea that all men are created equal. Throughout our more than 200 year history, Americans have fought, protested, and marched to make sure that we take the necessary steps in order to achieve that goal.
On that Tuesday, the country chose to continue marching in that direction.
In 2008, when a multi-racial candidate born and raised in Hawaii, with a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, asked the nation to elect him as President of the United States, he campaigned on a promise of ‘hope’ and ‘change’, two abstract concepts that were difficult to explain, yet somehow easily understood by the country. That was not the initial goal of the election, to change the course of history; we went into the election just looking for someone to do a modestly better job than George W. Bush, we left with a renewed faith in America, and the realization that maybe, we would finally be able to live up to the ideas in which this country was founded.
Four years later, our country faced a momentous choice: to continue down this new path we charted out in ’08, or to turn back to our more recognizable, conventional track. We’ve made our decision, and it begins a New Age for America, one filled with many unknowns but also one that brings a new hope to millions of Americans who were excluded from the fruits of yesteryear and eager to get a fair shot at the American Dream.
This isn’t to bash conservatives and their supporters: their political beliefs are relevant, their economic worries are real. But this was bigger than the economy, bigger than politics. This shows a major culture move for America. That’s the progress we’ve been wanting. That’s the hope we’ve been holding out for. That is the change that is happening right now.
The Urban Sophist 