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Last Updated: Nov 13th, 2008 - 22:23:33 |
Let's just say there were rules in my house that forbade us from dating black boys when I was growing up. I remember being told about this rule in fifth grade and I remember that my sisters and I instinctively thought this was wrong -- because my liberal mother said racism was wrong.
Confusing for us -- and I'm sure confusing for her. Years later, she confessed that she regretted her approach to our subsequent biracial romances. I took that confession to mean that her best and wisest intentions had come to terms with the hate that found its way into her childhood and stubbornly remained, in little pieces, in her heart. Racism is a dirty little family secret -- and not just in my family.
Nov. 4 was an emotional day for me, even before Obama was elected president. I called my mother, against my better judgement, and she confirmed that for the first time in her life, she voted Republican. She and I had this Obama conversation well before Election Day and it ended just as badly as the Election Day call. I couldn't understand how a lifelong Democrat would suddenly be compelled to vote Republican. My mother's reasons -- whether these were the only reasons or she just didn't express her political opinions well -- were these: he scares me, I don't like his reverend, and he scares me. Because my mother couldn't give me a solid reason based on policy, but instead based her vote on feelings, I harkened back to that fifth grade sit-down and concluded that there was some kind of racial thing going on. Take it from me: calling your mother a racist doesn't go over well.
A lot has been said about the 2008 election. Historic. Monumental. Cathartic. Transformational. But none rang more true for me than trans-generational. I know that my mother believed in the civil rights movement. I know what kind of person she raised me to be, even if she struggled with being wholly that kind of person herself. And I believe that she is like many mothers her age. They railed against institutionalized racial discrimination and they raised kids that have moved so much closer to putting the whole thing to bed.
As a teenager, it seemed me and my peers were constantly reliving our parents' coming of age. We'd idolized the hippies and the political revolutionaries. We yearned for something to fight for.
Where was our counter-culture? And moreover, what was the point? We looked to the 60s with an immense yearning for meaning in our own lives. When the election was called for Barack Obama, I realized how wrong our perspective had been. Instead of continuing the fight outside of the system, we were taking it inside. Our contribution to this trans-generational, American struggle was not a violent protest on our college campus or a multi-day sit-in; it was this election.
I'm a sucker for old movies, especially Hepburn/Tracy movies. This weekend, I watched "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." Turns out classics are amazingly prescient. The movie is about a black man and a white woman who want to marry in late 1960's America. In one poignant scene, between Poitier's character, Dr. Prentiss, and his father, the good doctor says this:
"You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it's got to be. And not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the dead weight of you be off our backs! You understand, you've got to get off my back! Dad...Dad, you're my father. I'm your son. I love you, I always have and always will. But you think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man."
That's what the post-boomer generations did this past week. We took our place in American history, and we elected Barack Obama, the man, to be our president.
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