We’re here! Invesco Field! The seats haven’t filled up yet, but the expectation is that 80,000 people will show up to see the first African American man accept a major party nomination for president. Expectations are a funny thing, you know? I keep hearing everyone talk about how historical this moment is and I desperately want to make sure that I understand for myself why this moment means so much? As a Black woman, I know the obvious answer involves a history review which would include a chapter on slavery, Jim Crow, voting rights, etc. And as ecstatic as I feel, I’m also nervous.
I have that same feeling I had right before I graduated from high school. It’s that feeling you get on your first romantic date with someone who could be “the one†or on your first day at a job you’ve always wanted.
It’s the feeling that your possibilities are limitless; that at this moment in time your life could change in unimaginable ways for the better or worse depending on what you do next. Depending on the choices you make.
A Bluegrass Country band just began playing and the leader just summed up the feeling.
“We’re standing on the doorstep of history,†he says.
Standing on a doorstep is not historical. Walking through it is…turning back is also.
It is rare that an entire country can come to a place where we have the ability to choose a collective path. That is rare. The paths before us are many and its easy to say that one path is right and another wrong, but that’s not true. They’re just different.
What do we expect from this moment? What do we expect from Sen. Barack Obama tonight? Can he change our world for the better? Can he open up doors that have closed? I think it is unfair to expect that he can. That charge is