Comments on: Musings on Election Day and the Obama Victory http://www.edwize.org/musings-on-election-day-and-the-obama-victory Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:46:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: Paul Schickler http://www.edwize.org/musings-on-election-day-and-the-obama-victory/comment-page-1#comment-66147 Paul Schickler Sat, 08 Nov 2008 04:19:03 +0000 http://edwize.org/?p=2538#comment-66147 Now I truly understand the figure of speech, “My heart is bursting.” The morning after Election Day I walked down the street with the nearly irresistible impulse to hug absolute strangers and congratulate them. But this is New York, and though there may be places in America where you would not be assaulted, arrested, or carted off in a straitjacket for that type of behavior, this is not one of them. I had sat down at the TV the previous evening at 9 p.m., a bowl of pre-celebratory ice cream in my lap and a box of tissues by my side. The ice cream disappeared rapidly, the tissues, more slowly, but just as surely. One disappeared when the electoral vote total finally showed 270. One when I saw blacks and whites hugging each other in Times Square. One when I saw the rapt face of a young woman perhaps just old enough to vote staring up at a Jumbotron TV at what was surely the most historic event in her young life. (Was there a more historic one in mine?) One when I saw a closeup of Jesse Jackson standing in the crowd in Chicago's Grant Park, tears coursing down his face. One in pinch-me awe when the president-elect appeared with the soon-to-be first lady, a first family of color for at least the next four years. Yet another when Barack Obama appeared at the podium around midnight and finally let loose with the type of stirring oratory for which he first became well known. A few more while he spoke. Another when he brought out his cute-as-buttons daughters for a final wave. There were many more tissues, but my memory, like my eyesight last night, is a bit of a blur. There were some causes for laughter, too. One was when Oprah Winfrey announced that this country was no longer red or blue, but the color purple. Another was when cameras set up near a Kenyan town that was home to some of Barack Obama's relatives showed a man wearing a bright orange cowboy hat. That hat captured the adventurous, can-do, exuberant spirit of America, as well as the doofy silliness and manic and unfettered yet devoted energy that elections can bring out in us. And from all I've heard and read, that hat also captured the wonder, the delight, and the excitement of the rest of the world in the prospect of an Obama presidency, their belief that in America, the shining lamp beside the golden door had dimmed but not gone out, that the promise of democracy was still in force, that hope was kept alive. To now return to a classroom filled with the children of people of color and speak of equal opportunity not in the future tense but the present tense, is as unspeakably satisfying an experience as any I have had in my career. And now when I tell my students that history is not just something they study, but something they live, I know they will understand. Teachable moment indeed. Now I truly understand the figure of speech, “My heart is bursting.” The morning after Election Day I walked down the street with the nearly irresistible impulse to hug absolute strangers and congratulate them. But this is New York, and though there may be places in America where you would not be assaulted, arrested, or carted off in a straitjacket for that type of behavior, this is not one of them.

I had sat down at the TV the previous evening at 9 p.m., a bowl of pre-celebratory ice cream in my lap and a box of tissues by my side. The ice cream disappeared rapidly, the tissues, more slowly, but just as surely. One disappeared when the electoral vote total finally showed 270. One when I saw blacks and whites hugging each other in Times Square. One when I saw the rapt face of a young woman perhaps just old enough to vote staring up at a Jumbotron TV at what was surely the most historic event in her young life. (Was there a more historic one in mine?) One when I saw a closeup of Jesse Jackson standing in the crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park, tears coursing down his face. One in pinch-me awe when the president-elect appeared with the soon-to-be first lady, a first family of color for at least the next four years.

Yet another when Barack Obama appeared at the podium around midnight and finally let loose with the type of stirring oratory for which he first became well known. A few more while he spoke. Another when he brought out his cute-as-buttons daughters for a final wave. There were many more tissues, but my memory, like my eyesight last night, is a bit of a blur.

There were some causes for laughter, too. One was when Oprah Winfrey announced that this country was no longer red or blue, but the color purple.

Another was when cameras set up near a Kenyan town that was home to some of Barack Obama’s relatives showed a man wearing a bright orange cowboy hat. That hat captured the adventurous, can-do, exuberant spirit of America, as well as the doofy silliness and manic and unfettered yet devoted energy that elections can bring out in us. And from all I’ve heard and read, that hat also captured the wonder, the delight, and the excitement of the rest of the world in the prospect of an Obama presidency, their belief that in America, the shining lamp beside the golden door had dimmed but not gone out, that the promise of democracy was still in force, that hope was kept alive.

To now return to a classroom filled with the children of people of color and speak of equal opportunity not in the future tense but the present tense, is as unspeakably satisfying an experience as any I have had in my career. And now when I tell my students that history is not just something they study, but something they live, I know they will understand. Teachable moment indeed.

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