Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Do we get it?

I mentioned in the last post that we at the Missourian have been constantly evaluating the nature of our election coverage and goals for that coverage.

One of the questions we addressed was, how do we cover the race aspect of this race? We certainly made an effort to represent every social group who had a particular "stake" in this election, and one of those social groups was obviously the black people of Columbia.

Let me just say that I'm not sure that I got it until last night. And it wasn't because of careful, widespread Missourian coverage that the true history of this moment hit me. It was because of a 3-minute conversation I had with a 25-year-old student right after President-elect Obama gave his acceptance speech. What she said, word for word, is below. I have nothing else to say; just think about it.

I’m speechless. It hasn’t really sunk in, but I feel like I can do anything, as an African American woman… Since growing up, everybody’s like ‘oh you can be president, you can do whatever you want to,’ but in the society we live in, we know that that’s not a hundred percent true. Well with Barack Obama becoming president, it’s true. You can do anything. You can be president. You can run the greatest country in the world and have skin like mine. It’s amazing. It’s absolutely amazing. And, I don’t know, I feel the hope that he talks about. I have hope for my future, as a college student about to graduate in six weeks, I feel like America’s moving in the right direction, that I can go out into the world and do what I want to do, change the world.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

That is so moving! Thanks for sharing. I cried with joy election night... finally!!!!! Some things are going right! I love you lots Liz and hope you are well!