President Obama

It has a nice ring to it. As the days pass after the presidential election, the gravity of the outcome has been slowly sinking in. Set aside the realization of ridding our great nation of a lame lame-duck president. It's the impact of having our first black president that has me still in awe. Mind you, when I went into that voting booth on Tuesday, I did not choose a black candidate; I chose a great candidate. Much in the same way I don't vote along party lines, I likewise do not vote along racial divides. And yet I don't wish to diminish the importance of America's first black president. It is truly historic. We are barely half a century removed from bathrooms and facilities for "colored", lynchings, and Jim Crow laws. And even today, something as seemingly innocuous as "skin-toned bandages" still carries a racial ignorance. However, these are injustices I will never fully know -- never fully comprehend -- because of the color of my own skin. So when a nation of predominantly white citizens speaks up and says, "I believe in this man," I can only imagine it propels us forward, as a nation, in the healing of our ugly racial scars. So it is now, with a president-elect Barack Obama, that I can once again hold my head high and say that I am proud to be an American.