Hope: Tale of 2 Cities

Today, regardless of the same old issues I had been dealing with, things feel different somehow. Everything feels a little bit better. As I search my feelings, I can’t deny that some racial pride is there and I’m not afraid to admit it. However, I’m not so selfish as to think that this moment is exclusively mine because of my race. This moment is deserved by the whole planet.
Last night in Brooklyn, people of all races converged on places like Madiba, the South African restaurant in Fort Green, Brooklyn. Traffic was blocked by dancers and drummers as people hugged kissed and partied until sun up. I chatted with my friend Liki, a waiter at Madiba about his feelings. He started to weep as his pride poured out. Liki was born in South Africa. He wanted me to understand how it felt for him, that a first generation son of African soil had become the leader of the free world. I smiled as I tried to understand. He said this event has the potential to change everything in his homeland. My vision had been narrow up until that moment. I had only explored what this momentous election meant to me as an African-American. As Liki and I embraced and separated to turn our attention back to the revelers, I got it! There were people of all ethnicities in this hodge-podge of humanity, all celebrating for their own individual reasons. I suddenly understood that we all share in this triumph, not just for my obvious reasons but even for sentimental reasons that may be known only to you. Today, everything has changed not just for black folks like me but by judging from images we have been seeing from around the world, I would say it has changed for a lot of folks everywhere.

Unfortunately, that change is not seen by everyone as positive.
I called my mother today at work to see how her world has been changed. She got really quiet and whispered to me that the mood in her office was very somber. My mother works in a small town in eastern Georgia. Statesboro is home to Georgia Southern University. Even though it has a large university, it is still pretty conservative. She said that no one even dared to discuss the election this morning. As she was dolefully describing the mood, I could feel how she was envious of the atmosphere I had described in my New York office and on the streets the night before. It kind dampened my spirits to think that my mom, who was a child during the civil rights era, is not able to fully enjoy this moment the way I am here. I do realize that even though she can’t run through the streets of Brooklyn dancing like a crazy man, she does carry a long overdue happiness in her heart that she couldn’t possibly imagine just two years ago. I just hope that those small pockets of America that is resistant to US living up to the fore-fathers ideals will eventually come around. And Hope seems to be catching.