Feature
November, 16 2008
Moments In History
by The XY Files
The strange thing about history is that even though the timeline continually lengthens with every passing minute, you never can tell when the truly momentous occasions will arrive. For my parents, and for all baby boomers, two of those moments were man setting foot on the moon, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Throughout my childhood that was the one pivotal historical watermark that belonged to several generations of people, none of which included mine. After all, I was born in 1975, well after Kennedy was killed. Well after we sent a man to the moon.
The first two events in my lifetime that stand out for me are when the Space Shuttle blew up (the first time) and when the Iron Curtain came down in Russia. Also, there was that time I asked a girl out on a date and she said yes. (Okay, I lied about that last one.)
Since then there have only been two moments when I felt like the entire world was together watching the exact same thing - a wonderfully weird feeling that has only been afforded us thanks to rapid globalization. The first of these moments was on September 11, 2001. For me, September 11th was mesmerizingly awful. Unlike most of the world, I was working in New York City that day and got to watch some of the destruction with my own eyes.
Then, I had to figure out how to get home.
Even though I was in the Bronx and not the island of Manhattan, all of the bridges and tunnels were shut down. That left me to my only option, staying at work. My mom and dad were home and safe and this was before marriage and kids. Plus, there were no phone calls that day and plenty of time to sit and get a lot of work done in between updating AOL News every two minutes. Some people may have been suffering, but I was getting stuff done and surfing the net. After the shock of that day, though, there arose an intense patriotism around the world. Yellow ribbons and American flags sprouted up everywhere. But over time there seemed to be a very noticeable stagnation of that patriotism. It had led us into a questionable war and alienated a good deal of the country.
During this time, marriage and kids happened for me. Suddenly, the way the world turned became very important for me because I was no longer just an impartial observer traveling around on spaceship Earth. Things were completely different. The future became immensely important because that was where my newborns were going to have to grow and learn and experience.
My interest in politics has never extended beyond armchair quarterbacking decisions and problems with the benefit of 20/20 vision. Making fun of President Bush mangling the English language was easy. Wondering why our country was making some of the decisions were were making made for good talk from time to time, but while some people claim our rights are slowly being taken away from us, there really had not been anything that really hit home as far as I was concerned. Marriage and kids alters your perceptions considerably. Owning a house and having a monthly mortgage payment and all sort of bills to keep up on forces some changes on you that you may not be prepared to make. Life, as they say, is a bitch. You will never fully understand that until it slaps you in the face.
Which leads me to the second moment, which took place a couple of weeks ago, when I watched as the United States elected Barack Obama to the position of President of the United States.
For many reasons, this unprecedented development in the history of the U.S. makes me proud and glad for a number of reasons. First of all, the entire world's view of the country changed in a heartbeat. They saw that the people did not approve of the direction in which our country was moving and they stood up and voted for change. Now, there are lots of people out there shouting about how President Obama will ruin our country. I'm way more than willing to reserve judgment until I can actually see what kind of job he does once he gets in office. Second of all, there was an overwhelming number of first-time voters who came out to vote, many of them for Barack Obama. The fact that so many first-time voters came out was pretty impressive. Every four years various outlets lobby for us to "Get Out and Vote" or to "Rock the Vote" or whatever fancy slogan a marketing executive dreamed up one day. Obama actually got a lot of people to the polls. There were huge lines and four hour waits. A number of them came out because they felt Obama was the candidate who was best able to restore the American Dream. At heart, Obama is like a frickin' rock star!
Finally, the most important reason that Barack Obama's win makes me proud is the most obvious: He is the first African-American President. Ever. That is a stunning and amazing cultural achievement. It made me very proud of my country to hear the commentator on BBC/America say "Barack Obama is the new President of the United States of America". It felt good, like after seven years of making the wrong decision, we finally made a good one. The future, for once, seemed a little brighter and more secure.
Then I went to work the next day and heard the horrible jokes, and I realized that we may have elected an African-American president, but there are clearly a lot of people in this country who cannot accept that fact. Some people are open about that fact, but what disconcerts me is that I am sure there are a number of people out there who are not vocal and who feel this way but cannot admit it.
I hope as my kids grow older they do not fall into this "old America", because for as happy and proud as I was when Obama won, I was equally as saddened and disgusted by some of the things I heard afterward. The last time I checked, a person's skin color did not make them any less than anyone else. As my children become teens and young adults, I hope they are able to look back at this time and see it as a point in history when things did indeed change for the better.
