Barack Obama: The 44th President of the United States

By Patricia Wilson-Smith

It happened before we knew it. At precisely 11:00 pm Eastern Standard time, on November 4th, 2008, when we expected to begin hearing more state projections, all of the network and cable news outlets declared Senator Barack Obama to be the President-Elect of the United States of America.

I didn’t do what I thought I would do. I was all prepared to collapse into a fit of tears, to become overwhelmed by the enormity of it all; to feel a huge release from the nervous tension that had been building for the last several days. Instead, what I felt was serenity, a peace that I couldn’t explain. As my family and friends clapped and cheered and cried, I sat to myself, shaking my head at the idea that it could all be over just like that.

There is much to wonder about in what took place that night. What happened to the “Bradley Effect”, or the voters (it was feared) who’d lied to pollsters about voting for Obama and then didn’t? Where was the total desertion of “un-decideds” to the McCain camp that had been predicted by some? It was amazing – there were no states so close to call that the race would linger on for days or weeks. No long lines at the polls, or riots, or voter suppression to speak of, nothing. Just an awe-inspiringly decisive win on the part of President-Elect Obama, including in states that had not voted for a Democrat in several decades.

Even the highly-paid news pundits didn’t know what had hit them. For days and weeks ahead of time, fears regarding the dreaded “Bradley Effect” had been the main topic of many of their shows, and going into election night, it was the one thing that no one was really sure about. I had long ago taken solace in the fact that if the Bradley Effect was in fact a real phenomenon, it would not necessarily be so after 26 years. I was confident, as was Michelle Obama that any such effect would have shown itself in the Primary.

And what of the un-decideds and the ever-tightening race the media warned us about up until the very last moment? CNN’s before and after poll-of-polls results showed that even though some races absolutely did tighten at the end, the polls going into election night proved to be dead-on, primarily because un-decided voters essentially split down the middle in their support of the two candidates.

What about the long, oppressive lines at the polls? The voter suppression fears? Early voting made mince meat of these, in states where early voting was allowed, and in other states, lower than anticipated turn-out helped with the rest. Though it is inconceivable to me that anyone in this country who was eligible would not have been electrified into action by the excitement of this race, the truth is, more Democrats than ever turned out to vote, while fewer Republicans cast votes for their party than in 2004, an obvious reflection on the disparity in excitement levels between the two camps. A concerted effort on the part of both campaigns to monitor the polls for voter suppression and other problems apparently calmed the waters there.

The real truth of the matter is that Election Night 2008 was a brilliant culmination of an almost flawlessly executed campaign on the part of President-Elect Obama and his campaign strategists. We were knee deep in the primary season when I got a taste of how professional and well-run his organization was as a volunteer, and it never missed a beat. It helped as well to have a candidate with the mind and heart to win over Americans from all backgrounds, and untold people from every nation around the world, and whose message of hope and change gave most of us exactly what we needed to hear in some pretty turbulent times. One of the most beautiful things about the celebration that went into the night that night was that it literally took place in concert all around the world – even the staunchest Republican had to have been moved by the sight of the global euphoria, especially from the residents of Kenya, the land of Barack’s father’s birth.

As a black women, it has been almost surreal, watching the nation suddenly become fixated on Michelle Obama, and Sasha and Malia Obama; already so much change, in a country where the disappearance of a small black child or an African-American woman has in the past, garnered almost no national media attention, especially as compared to our white counterparts. Suddenly, what Michelle Obama is wearing is the talk of the fashion world, and where she will send her daughters to school is on the minds of pundits and prognosticators the world over. Everything is changing right before our eyes, and it is a privilege to be able to see it all unfold.

All that is left now is for us to keep up the fight for a truly United States. Electing our first African-American President comes with great responsibility for the black men, women and children in this country. It is not okay to joke about making white people slaves; it is not okay to gloat over Obama’s victory to even our close white friends, because he was not elected by blacks alone. It is, however, the time that we have been waiting for since the beginning of our history in this nation. We can officially close the chapter on systemic racism at the highest levels of government, and focus our efforts on the day to day problems of inequality that still plague our workplaces, schools, communities, and homes.

And we can begin to be the change we need. What would it mean for this country if the legions of Obama and McCain volunteers for that matter, black, white, and brown, were as determined to see that all of our children get a good education as they were that their candidate get elected? What would it mean for us all if that same army of volunteers assisted the elderly, helped feed the sick, aided veterans, and victims of natural disasters?
It would give an already enormously historic event new and lasting meaning. It would usher in a new era of true bi-partisanship and collective support that could get this country back on the road to being the one we once knew, after eight-years of mayhem.

In other words, it would be what some of us fought so hard and long for – the kind of change that President-Elect Obama can believe in.

On Obama and Black Boys

By Patricia Wilson-Smith

As of this writing, the current national Gallup poll has Senator Obama leading by a respectable percentage; several previously red states are either leaning or solidly in the Obama column, and Senator McCain is fighting tooth and nail to hold on to other Republican strong holds, including his own home state of Arizona. Though most of us are afraid to say so, it appears that we are in fact about to see our collective dreams come true – one that many of us thought could not happen, and definitely not in our lifetimes. We are mere days away from what could be one of the most historic and defining moments in this nation’s history, and as a black woman, it’s been hard for me to know where to begin when it comes to expressing my thoughts about what’s coming. The fact is, the photo that accompanies this article says it better than I ever could, but here goes.

There are so many black women out there who, like me, are raising young black men. Due to a recent marriage, I’m now raising three. And it is as much a sign of how much this nation has changed that in some ways, my three sons are oblivious to the importance of the coming event, as it is an indictment on our society that as women raising black men, we’ve longed for someone, anyone to ease our fears about our sons’ futures and to be the role models that our young boys have so desperately needed for so long. Not that we haven’t had strong models for them at all, but we’ve been hard pressed to find them outside the fields of sports, music, or other areas of the entertainment industry.

I was left alone to raise the only child I’ve ever given birth to when I was just four months pregnant. The pain and fear I felt at the time soon gave way to resentment, and then to a hatred so pronounced that it threatened to swallow me whole. I had tried my best to play by the rules, only becoming pregnant after six years of marriage during which I had begun to think that I was incapable of having a child.

The news of my pregnancy was at once joyous and terrifying, as it became increasingly apparent that I would be forced to raise my son alone. Back then, I could not comprehend how it was that the father of my only child could not understand how much his son needed him, how much I needed him, and the pain of the rejection of me an my son was unbearable at times. It was everything I could do after the birth of my sweet David to will myself on a daily basis to be grateful for the part-time status of his father, and the modest child support he paid faithfully each month. But it was what I had to do, for my son’s sake, and also because a guiding hand, a role-model, a mentor, my son’s father could and would never be.

What was even harder is that it wasn’t long before I realized that I had to find some way to learn to forgive my ex-husband; I eventually realized that he himself was and is a product of a shattered home, and ill-equipped to play the role of father and husband. Raised without his birth father, and ultimately without his birth mother, he had no real guiding hand, no role model of his own to speak of. His was an existence of sustenance only; as a result, he had no foundation given to him in what it meant to be a father and a husband, to raise a black boy in this society, to set and achieve goals, or anything like that. The condition of his life has been one of playing what he’s been dealt, and the result is that though he loves our son as much as he knows how to, he has nothing meaningful in the way of a winning hand to deal my son.

My story is not unique. From the young woman who may have gotten caught after a cataclysmic lapse in judgment, to those who like me, watched their husbands walk out on them after years of marriage, literally leaving them holding a blue diaper bag, many black women have had to come to terms with the idea that we have been left alone to raise little men. As a population, we have allowed ourselves to fall into a cycle of family disintegration that has become all too common place. These days, it’s the African-American kids who live in in-tact two parent homes who are the weird ones. In our communities, having a father who is in the home, productive and engaged has become a novelty. A tragic, gut-wrenching novelty.

But for the most part as black women, we’ve persevered. Doing all that we can to expose our sons to the right influences, to talk tough to them when we need to in their fathers’ absence, and to do and say whatever we can to try to mold them into the men they need to be. Sometimes without the benefit of having had a male role model to emulate ourselves, and all the while praying that OUR sons will prove the ugly statistics that we can’t escape or get out of our heads wrong.

The reality is, the problem is generational, and has its roots in slavery and the systemic destruction of the African family unit as it was when slaves were brought to this country. Many stories of the time tell of how upon arriving on these shores, men were immediately separated from their children and wives, in order to begin the process of degradation and humiliation that would ensure that their spirits would be broken, and that they would willingly comply with their masters’ wishes. It began way back then, and persists to this day because of our inability to re-discover our strong family ties, through the lingering effects of Jim Crow, the confusion of first segragation and then forced desegregation, and the plain old racism and failed attempts at evening the playing field (like welfare, and in some respects affirmative action).

So it was, that we the black mothers of America found ourselves; over the years, frightened beyond all measure that our young men would be sacrificed to the ravages of an unfair justice system, or worse to the violence of the mean streets; or engulfed in the culture of fake opulence and self-degradation that is some rap music, and some aspects of the Hip-Hop culture; or lost and forgotten in an educational system that is tilted towards their white counteparts, and none too anxious to fix itself in order to help to turn the tide of drop-outs and illiterate graduates it produces in startling higher proportions in the minority community. And most of all we were certainly convinced that though blacks in this country have made many strides, there were still some very obvious limits, when on the national stage walked Barack Obama.

Now please don’t zone out on me. I know that Senator Obama is not the second coming, or even the answer to all our problems, but what he is is a shining beacon of hope, and proof of what we’ve all known all along – that black men can be real fathers, good husbands, and strong and thoughful leaders, hard stop. That we are a nation of little budding Obama’s waiting to happen. That with the proper care and feeding, our boys are capable of achieving the unthinkable. The beauty of Senator Obama is that he not only displays these qualities as a legislator and candidate, he displays them even more as a father to his gorgeous daughters and husband to his wife.

And so just like in the photo, Senator Obama, along with every other weight he carries on his shoulders, literally is caring the hopes of the black boys who will soon be men in this country, who generation after generation, have been able to hide their brilliance and potential behind the mantle of hopelesness that said that they could only go so far, or achieve so much. And he and his family stand as the most shining example of a strong family, black, white, or purple that we’ve seen on the national forefront in a long time. It is an astounding feeling, as the final days of the campaign fade away, to look forward to the days after November 4th, when we can all breathe an endless sigh of relief and spend our days reminisicing about the fight. And it will not be lost on any of us what this historic event can and will mean to the young black boys of this country, who after that date, will be able to say with confidence and without hesitation, “one day, I will be President of the United States”.

Look at the picture again. I get great joy in the wide-eyed wonder on my sons’ faces when I tell them that once black kids and white kids couldn’t play together – not totally unlike the giggle I get out of watching them collapse into a fit of laughter when I tell them that when I was their age, we only had four channels to watch on television. One day, my sons, and the boy in this picture will be able to astound their grandchildren with wild tales of a time in our nation’s history when the idea of a black man running for President was laughable – unheard of. And hopefully, they will smile, and take great joy in their chuckles, and marvel at the innocence that comes from being the beneficiaries of the brave and remarkable accomplishments of those who came before us.

Four Days in Denver

The Obama Campaign put together the video below, entitled, “Four Days in Denver”. As many of you know, I was a delegate for Georgia’s 7th Congressional District, along with my friend Steffini Bethea. I took hundreds of pictures, and even some video, but the video the campaign has put together gives you an amazing behind-the scenes look at the convention preparations, and also gives you a glimpse at what it was like to be there:

Going to Denver, especially being in Invesco Field on Day Four was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. If you were viewing from home, you knew that something truly special was taking place, but if you were there, in a seat during the proceedings, you couldn’t help but feel like you were part of making history yourself.

Now with only a little over three weeks until Election Day, let us all remember that even in the midst of the worst economic crisis of most of our lifetimes, growing fears about threats from abroad, and in a climate rife with bitter racial tensions, everything that we have done to get to this place has been nothing short of remarkable; everything that Senator Obama has done to bring the people of this nation together, in ways that we’ve never BEEN together has been truly remarkable. and on November 5th, when we awake to the reality that not only have we elected the first African American President of the United States, but that we’ve elected the best leader we could possibly have for our time, we will have much to celebrate. But – we will also have much more work to do.

Denver was amazing. A miracle. History-making. And it was all thanks to the long, hard work of so many of you. Nothin’ left but a countdown!

God bless President Barack Obama!

The View From Afar, And Why It Matters

By Paul James

Growing up as a kid in the East End of London, I was fascinated by all that the USA had to offer, as were most of the impressionable young generation of my day. The aura pervading the music, movie and sports industries was upon maturity replaced by an appreciation of the economic, political and more pointedly, military eminence the US has on the planet and the influence this nation that comprises but 5% of world population has on each and every human being.

Uncle Sam coughs, the world sneezes.

Naturally, it follows that the President of the United States of America is the most powerful administrative office on the planet.

In this contest a recent opinion poll surveyed by the BBC suggests that Obama leads McCain by a four to one margin. The poll also explored the expected impact of the US election. In 17 of the 22 countries surveyed the most common view is that, if Barack Obama is elected president, America’s relations with the rest of the world are likely to get better. If John McCain is elected, the most common view in 19 countries is that relations will stay about the same as they are now. As things stand now, there is nothing but timid obeisance to American might which is presently being wielded with the recklessness of a bull in a china shop.

Why should this be of consequence to Americans?

Wouldn’t it be nice if the next POTUS could be greeted enthusiastically abroad by cheering crowds like Kennedy or even Reagan were, instead of having the tightly choreographed security extravaganzas that the hugely unpopular incumbent (Bush) does?

Doesn’t it follow that an American President who was popular abroad might be able to accomplish far more than the current administration, which has seen members of the “coalition of the willing” walk away from Iraq, and few countries willing to carry more of the burden in Afghanistan?

Wouldn’t it bode well for the possibility of actually achieving some of the vital and urgent tasks that globally we all must face vis-à-vis energy, our shared environment and the economy?

Weren’t you just plain embarrassed, as I was during the recent debacle in the Caucasus Mountains when McCain appeared to salivate at the prospect of confrontation remarking, rather presumptuously, that we were ‘all Georgians’, i.e., ready to genuflexively kick some Russian butt, Cold War style? Wasn’t it somewhat heartening to hear the pragmatic tones emanating from Obama who criticized Russia’s actions and called for reconstruction aid for Georgia but opined that kicking Moscow out of the G8 would do little good and harm U.S. efforts to work with Russia on other issues?

Barack Obama is symbolic of change; the change the rest of the world is looking for in the US. Of A. Change to a more tolerant, mature society, worthy of the respect it commands. In 2008, as in 2004, Americans need a president who can heal the image wounds of the Bush era. His very being acknowledges the diversity that is America. A Kenyan father and an American mother, born in Hawaii and partly raised in Indonesia his rapprochement with the View From Afar is in diametric opposition to McCain’s, whose direct dealings abroad thus far have come at the figurative point of a gun – a point he emphasizes narcissistically and ad nausea in his stump speeches.

Viewed up close by this naturalized American, I watched the huge party conventions that prelude Election ’08 from suburban Atlanta. I saw the lucid, eloquent and emotive delivery of Obama’s acceptance speech and compared that to the repetitive, self-indulgent and wooden delivery of McCain and said to myself:

“I don’t get it. It’s like chalk and cheese the difference is so stark. Obama should win by a landslide!”

Yet the polls illustrate the large disparity between the View From Afar and the view from within.

I don’t get it.

Paul James is a blogger and IT Professional originally from London, England. He resides in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife, BWFO Founder Patricia Wilson-Smith and their three sons.

Race in the Race

Race in the Race

By Patricia Wilson-Smith

It’s been a roller coaster ride. For those of us who have been Obama supporters from Day One, it’s been like being on the world’s largest roller coaster after eating a chili dog from Atlanta’s famed Varsity Restaurant. It’s actually even worse.

First – we endured the looks of confusion on the faces of our friends and family, when we told them we were going to a meeting of Barack Obama volunteers. “Barack what?” was the most frequent response to such a pronouncement. A brief explanation of who Barack Obama was back then, almost always elicited the same response. “Girl, you crazy. This country not gon’ vote fa no black man.”

I can remember it like it was yesterday. Even my 77 year-old mother, turning up her nose at me in disgust over what she perceived as my colossal waste of time – the meetings, the phone calls, the organizing. She accused me of caring more about “that Borock O-bama” than I did her, my house, or my son. Or even my job. And yes, she was sure, with everything in her, that he had no chance of winning the nomination. No chance at all.

But the early supporters endured, all the way through Super Tuesday, when the people of Iowa, most of them white Americans sent a lightning bolt through the country by casting their ballots mostly for the junior Senator from Illinois. The news was a-buzz with the historic nature of what was perceived at the time as a Clinton upset, and everything began to change. Some of my brothers and sisters, my friends and family began to actually ask themselves, “could it really happen?”

But consequently, all manner of new ludicrousness began:

“The Clintons have always been there for black people – what do we know about this dude?”

“He’s not black enough – he don’t care about our issues!”

“A vote for him is a wasted vote!”

“He need to change his name if he wants to even have a chance!”

And my personal favorite…”I can’t vote for that man, they might assassinate him!”

Black people were running into each other emotionally – we didn’t know what to feel or what was coming next. And then the Obama campaign machine proved to us all that not only could he win the primary – he also had a chance – some chance, of winning the election.

How did they do it? In part, by almost completely playing down Senator Obama’s race, and instead opting to highlight his skills as a uniter and change agent. He wowed us all black, white and brown, with his ability to help us see what was possible, and gave us all a reason to feel a hope that was so strong, that by the time the Reverend Jeremiah Wright flap reached it’s climax, we had begun to believe that Senator Obama was uniquely qualified to help begin truly turning the battleship of racial bigotry in this country. It seemed that he might even have had what it took to help the white majority in this country better understand the black condition; why for some, an anger still boils just below the surface, as he did in his now historic speech from Philadelphia. And though it was a rough and rocky road, he made it through and we began to believe even more.

Then, of course, he fought hard and long to make it across the finish line to clinch the nomination. And before I knew it, all the nay-sayers were loudly celebrating, and proclaiming their disbelief over his accomplishment, and daring to believe that this country truly had crossed an important milestone. It was time to look ahead to the General Election, and so many of us had hope in our hearts, and a renewed belief in the progress we’d made as a nation.

More money raised than any campaign in history. A trip abroad that proved he is loved and admired by citizens of other nations in a way that is unprecedented in American politics. And an acceptance speech, given in Denver’s Invesco Field, to over 84,000 supporters, all crowning achievements for a campaign that has been almost flawlessly executed, and that also by the way, stopped one of the most prolific political machines of our time dead in it’s tracks.

And now that we are several weeks into the General Election, a daunting question is again beginning to take center stage amongst the pundits and nightly news media. A question that given the dire nature of our economy, the general distaste for the human and monetary costs of the war in Iraq, the record number of foreclosures, and the general and overriding belief that the nation is heading in the wrong direction, begs for an answer – is race the reason why Senator Obama is not at least 20 points ahead of John McCain in the polls?

I was at Invesco field when Senator Obama gave what was by all accounts an incredible speech. On the way out, as I followed the throng of people exiting the arena, I over heard a conversation between two white gentleman, who, after being suitably impressed by his speech and the flawless execution of the whole night, wondered aloud about the same thing:

“Man, that speech was amazing. That crowd was amazing. I don’t understand why we’re not up by 20 or 30 points in the polls”, said the first gentleman.

“It’s his race, pure and simple”, said the second. “It’s hard to believe, but there are still a lot of people out there that just won’t vote for a black man.”

I could feel tears well up in my eyes. Because it dawned on me at that moment that despite the crowds, despite the miraculous fund-raising, the inspirational and sometimes brilliantly instructional speeches – it might still in the end, come down to how many people in this country can set aside their irrational prejudices in order to do what’s best for the nation. There are no two ways about it – the shockingly low difference in the candidates’ poll numbers in my opinion, bears this out.

It reminds me of one of the most amazing, and yet most chilling movies I’ve ever seen – “A Time To Kill”. In it, Samuel L. Jackson, the father of a young girl, has to stand trial for murdering two white men who had brutally beat and raped his daughter, and left her for dead at the bottom of a lake. By some miracle, the girl was found and saved, but her womb had been destoryed, and she bore outward physical scars, and internal scars that would never go away.

Despite the brutal nature of the crime, Jackson’s character was treated like a vigilante, an angry black man bent on exacting justice against the perpetrators of the horrible crime against his daughter; the white inhabitants of the small town gave hardly a thought to what the little girl had gone through, and wanted Samuel L. to fry for murdering the men who were clearly guilty, and clearly unrepetent. The anguish he must have felt at the thought of what was done to his daughter, the insanity it must have induced never entered most of the town’s minds. Enter Matthew McConaughey.

Matthew McConaughey was Samuel L’s defense attorney. Faced with a jury of all whites, from a southern town where racial disharmony was the norm, and working for a defendant who had in fact murdered the two men in question, the odds were against he and Samuel L. And it looked like it was all but over until he did something extraordinary.

If you saw the movie, you know what he did. He stepped up before the jury, and asked them to use their imaginations to invision the little black girl, as he told the anguished story of what she had endured at the hands of the perpetrators. He described every blow, every atrocity in graphic enough detail to paint a vivid, disturbing picture. And at the end of it all, he asked the jury to picture it, really picture it all – and then imagine that the girl was white.

I’m overcome by the need to do the same thing to the American people. I want to get a bull horn that will reach the rural areas of Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and the farms of Missouri. I want to implore them to imagine a man, who was a genius student, a graduate of Columbia University, who would go on to Harvard, graduate at the top of his class, become the president of the Harvard Law Review. Imagine that that man went on to become a constitutional scholar, and lecturer, and that rather than take the lucrative road to wealth and financial comfort for his family, chose instead to give himself over to a life of service as first an Illinois State Senator, and then a United States Senator. Imagine that this man, through his unique vision for the country, had inspired so many people, that he was literally called to service, and drafted to run for President of the United States. I want ALL of white America to picture it, really picture it all.

And then imagine that he’s black.