There were tears of despair Tuesday night at Republican party headquarters as Senator John McCain delivered his concession speech, while CNN broadcasted the decision of American voters that Senator Barack Obama would become the 44th President of the United States.
Meanwhile, on the streets of Chicago, Manhattan, Newark, Philadelphia, Memphis, and Mobile, there were tears of joy as President-elect Obama delivered his victory speech at Grant Park. Clearly, the Nation’s sentiments were divided on the outcome of the election.
What America needs to do now is push away the tears and cheers and come together as one. The old saying is “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”, therefore we need to come together Red States and Blue States, otherwise I, as well as many others will be fearful that the “change” President-elect Obama envisioned will remain a myth.
I was shocked when I heard certain statements from other students. A girl who dorms here at Rutgers Newark said that when CNN announced President-elect Obama’s victory a black girl shouted out of her window “That’s right! In your face white people!” I heard of another instance that took place in small town Pennsylvania. A white woman approached three young black girls at a gas station and used the derogatory alternative to Negro referring to Obama’s election as the 44th President.
This negative behavior is wrong. If it is not changed, we will erode all of the hard work that President-elect Obama promises to bring to the table in his first term.
In light of all this negative discourse, we must remind ourselves that we need to be colorblind if we are to move forward in harmony. More than 40 years ago, Dr. King envisioned that one day his children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Many tears of joy were shed when President-elect Obama was delivering his victory speech. I couldn’t help to think that in the back of their minds, people were remembering the dream of Dr. King and wished he could have lived to see this moment in world history.
In his speech, President-elect Obama reached out to those voters who did not support him, asking for their commitment, faith, and understanding. Without everyone's help, we won’t be able to pull this country from its current maze of confusion, terrorism, and poverty.
The similarities of this election are similar to that of 1932 when newly elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced an economy crippled by a stock market crash and reeling from the affects of the Great Depression. In Obama's first term, Americans will have to be patient and supportive as the country tries to dig itself out of a monumental budget deficit caused by greedy high rollers on Wall Street.
With a plate that is overflowing with problems and a faction of detractors who are practically setting him up for failure, one has to wonder how Obama is going to make sense of this mess. The question I ask myself is: will Obama be the next FDR, the father who rescued the country? Or will the American people have another agenda, one that will set him up for failure?
Heather Skolnik is a journalism major at Rutgers-Newark. Posted November 2008.
