I can’t believe how much of a dustup has ensued from the following - seemingly inocuous - quotation:
“For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.” (CNN)
Regardless of your political affiliation, I don’t see how you could take this to mean that Mrs. Obama was ever anything but a proud American.
Did anyone on the right stop to consider what might actually be going through her mind? And what it means?
I believe that what she meant to convey is that, just perhaps, on the momentous occasion of a black man - and the one she married - being put up as one of the major parties’ nominees for president, that a wall has been knocked down. An injustice corrected.
That, from today forward, the game has changed. 40 acres and a mule be damned, we’re going for the big prize.
And also perhaps a bit of defiance, in that it doesn’t matter how many white racist bigots might still be out there and what they might think - because they, as of this moment, don’t matter a damn anymore.
The tide has finally turned, and the equation now works in favour of those so long oppressed and dispossessed. It really is a new day.
Being Canadian, and - incidentally - white, you might expect that I have a different perspective on things. Canada, as most of you should know, was the destination of the Underground Railroad.
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