A Letter To You On This Historic Day.

Dear Jhonen,

I am writing this post with one hand while holding your pacifier in your mouth with the other, but I feel compelled to let you know what happened to this country yesterday. Jhonen, for the past eight years our country has been led by President George Bush, a man who misled this country into a war I don’t believe should have ever been waged. Thousands of people, American and Iraqi alike have died because of it. Our country is trillions of dollars in debt and faces the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. I just found out that 22,000 Americans die every year because they can’t afford or have no access to health insurance. Global warming is threatening Earth’s very existence. Our education system is not even close to the top in the world despite the power we hold and the wealth we enjoy.

Worse than that, our nation has failed to live by the ideals of liberty and possibility for all that has always defined  us and set us apart as a beacon of hope to nations across this globe.  In 2004 when President Bush was reelected, beating John Kerry, suddenly being intelligent, well-spoken, honest, or elite somehow became distasteful. Americans voted for a person who, in my mind, represented ugly things: judgement of others to the point of bigotry,  an arrogant, power-crazed view of America’s place in the world as a sort of bullying watchdog for Democracy, and the notion that our leader should be someone we’d like to go have a beer with after work. I’d rather have a leader who can inspire us as a people to better ourselves and to join together to better this nation. To know that change is possible and to dare to believe that politics can be free from corruption, greed, and self-importance. To remember that our power comes from our common  ideals and not from our guns or a stubborn refusal to admit our mistakes. To believe that our country is great but certainly not infallible and not without fault. That being a patriot is about more than flag pins and empty words like freedom, but about the diversity of ideas and the ability to express them. And that, through the free exchange of ideas and beliefs we can all individually and collectively change for the better.

In 2000 and 2004 I thought people had lost track of those things. I felt that Americans had made a choice to think narrowly and selfishly, if they were thinking at all. But then something happened. President Bush messed up big time. Again and again and again. Then, at exactly the perfect time in history, someone new came along named Barack Obama. Your Dad and I were living in Chicago when he became an Illinois Senator. I waved at him as he went by in a car at the St. Patrick’s Day parade. I, along with the rest of Chicago, fell for him. That year he gave the key note address at the Democratic Convention and, for the first time, a politician made me cry, made me think, made me hope, and made me believe in this country and in the power we have to change.

Yesterday, four years after that powerful speech, Barack Obama was elected 44th President of the United States. He gave a victory speech to hundreds of thousands of people in Grant Park in Chicago and 137 million people turned out to vote. We waited in long lines to cast our ballots and we, as a nation,  triumphed over apathy and fear.

I don’t expect or even need President Obama to work miracles. I’m not trying to worship a mere mortal. He has many challenges ahead and many of them may be insurmountable. What I celebrate about yesterday’s election, and what I hope so desperately to instill in you, is that intelligence is to be admired, not denounced. That apathy and fear can never lead to change. That to hope is not to live in a state of denial. That idealism is not fantasy. I want you to know that, 50 years ago, African Americans weren’t even allowed to vote. Now we have a black president. Two years ago Obama was flagged to be searched in the airport because of his name (too Muslim sounding…it seems we are quick to replace one form of hate and fear with another). Yet today he is our president. What I want you to see is not that an African American actually made it to the White House, but that, in the end, it didn’t matter that he was black or had a funny sounding name. We saw past the color of his skin and discovered, instead, a smart, calm, confident, idealistic, sensible, articulate, and capable man.  This country transformed and transcended yesterday and that’s a rare and special event. It meant a lot to me, and to your dad, and I just wanted to share with you what I learned from it and what I hope to teach you as a result of it. I’m inspired to do something to help make this country better because of what I witnessed yesterday. I figure, as a new Mom, I can provide you every opportunity possible and teach you the things I think will help make you into a man of integrity and service.

Keep hoping for more, Jhonen, and be the change you want to see in this world.

Love,

Mom