A DREAM COME TRUE

When I was a little girl, in about the third or fourth grade, an older Italian boy called me a half breed. I quickly yelled "Am not!" And when I went home that afternoon I asked my mother what a half breed was.

It was my first experience with racism. My mother handled me so well that I wasn't even aware that it was a racist remark until years later. Many in the small town I grew up in thought my father was white. I'm pretty sure he does have more European heritage than African(if any), but he and his family are unmistakably black. They might not look like it, but they definitely have felt black their entire lives.

My parents ran the local branch of the NAACP. They were absolutely Pro Black but they were never anti white. There were no ugly stories told in our home about white people and we were not raised to feel less than white people. It never even occurred to us that there was a difference, unless someone else bought it to our attention. I thought I could grow up to be anything.

Still, on the day after history as Barack Obama makes his debut as the proposed Democratic candidate for the President of the United States, I am filled with an overwhelming sense of awe. Last night was a watershed moment for me. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I listened to him speak. I was filled with such pride. I felt the power of being part of a moment in time. A sense of belonging to something supernatural. It was like a holy experience.

I certainly felt that God has his hand on Barack and this nation. That the people of the United States, those who were Black and White, Latino and Asian, Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus all together as one, cheering in the crowd for hope, was bigger than the man himself. That is a holy experience!

I have felt the consciousness of being a black woman since living in the south my adult life. I have both witnessed and experienced blatant racism in the work place, on vacations, in restaurants. I live in a city that is so widely diverse yet socially segregated. I was beginning to become cynical, hard hearted. I was losing the hope my parents gave me as a child.

I participated as a facilitator for discussions on race at Emory University a few years ago. The history and literature I read, the documentaries I viewed opened my eyes to things I was completely naive about. When my term as facilitator was complete I was left with a sense of frustration and sadness. I didn't think my fellow participants who were not black got it. No matter what we shared, how distinct the proof, it was clear to me that many of them left with the same biases and antipathy they arrived with.

And then last night. A bright shining beam of hope called Barack Obama.

The hope that the days of racial division and stereotyping are short lived is an exhilarating notion. This nomination is proof that we are on our way. That the broken backs of our ancestors, the bloodied bodies and terrorized men and women of the civil rights era have not suffered in vain.

Barack is a formidable man. He is charismatic, extremely intelligent, eloquent and honest. Oh and so good looking. But more than that I believe he is chosen.

He is just a few short years older than me, is a "half breed", probably was called names just like I was. He had to overcome huge obstacles. And here he is today. Our man. Our hero. Our brotha! Let us not forget that his wife Michelle is most definitely a true sistah too. All her style and grace, and fire. Her wonderful enigmatic strength clothed in poise and femininity that surely pushed him along the way to reach higher and dig deeper.

In August when he goes to Denver for the Democratic National Convention it will be the anniversary of the March on Washington and the famous Martin Luther King speech "I have a dream..." Political pundits and news commentators have been calling it a coincidence. I think not. I believe it was planted in a dream and divinely ordered for just this place in time.

While the United States has experienced the most agonizing eight years of recent history, just like a laboring woman, it is time for birth. The birth of a new nation. Let it be, O God, let it be.

That's melavision. What's yours?