That’s the question, isn’t it?  What now?
Last night was great.  As you might imagine, I wasn’t dancing and crying like everyone else was.  I did have to hold a few back when I saw Jesse Jackson crying, though.  That was, perhaps, the most poignant thing of all.
For all the talk about Jesse and his beef with Obama, somehow we forgot that Jesse’s a product of the civil rights movement.  We forget very often that Jesse Jackson has done more for black people — and, probably more importantly, poor people — than most of us could ever dream of.  He’s been blasted out of the water by those on both sides (I’m pretty hard on him), but he is a legendary figure worthy of our reverence.
And he sat there at Grant Park and cried like a baby.
See, that’s the thing about Jesse.  In recent years, he became more pragmatic in his approach.  He moved form stuff like PUSH and Breadbasket and moved the game to Wall Street.  He knew the deal — black folks had to get into the right networks to make things happen.  He made mistakes with those projects, but Jesse got it.
And I firmly believe Jesse gets it now.  Barack Obama got himself into those networks, played the game, and he won.  Maybe that’s a part of the Obama victory that isn’t that inclusive, but fuck it.  Obama beat the matrix.  I tip my hat, and I’ll do it on command if he asks me to.  That election, in every way, was a certified ass whoopin’.  Chris Rock said Obama couldn’t win by decision.  It had to be a knockout.
He knocked John McCain out.
I’m reluctant to praise the first black anything.  It’s a big deal, absolutely, but I’m leery of affirming the notion many have that the first black _____ is the first black person qualified to do a job.  That ain’t what it is.  That is a testament to the dedication of whoever that first ______ is, because he’s got stories that’ll make your toes curl.  It says nothing, however, about black people.
I guess that’s why I’ve never swelled with pride at the sight of Obama.  He showed a black man could do it.  I always thought a black man could do it.  He didn’t show me anything that I didn’t already know.
I am, and have been, floored by the man, though.  So impressive, so cool, so strong, so prepared.  I’ve never seen anyone like him before, and I may never see anything close to it again.  His persona is so powerful that he was clearly black — with a name that made blackness impossible to avoid — and still won this election.  It wasn’t that people overlooked his blackness.  It wasn’t that people felt good about voting for the black guy.  It’s that he could have been cross eyed — but not blind — like David Patterson and still won this election.  
Barack Obama is that bad of a motherfucker, and I will not take his singular credit away by going overboard about what this means about the progress of this country.  Barack Obama isn’t President-elect because America’s sooo much better than it used to be.  He’s President-elect because he could not, and should not, have been denied.  Don’t pat anyone on the back for that right there BUT Barack Obama.
(Never mind that the only explanation for how a Democrat wouldn’t win this year was racism.  Seriously, if the Democrats couldn’t win this one, they’d have to go away and never return.  This isn’t App State beating Michigan.)
But people can pat themselves on the back for what they did.  Not for voting Obama in, though.  It’s for the energy that surrounded this election, the heightened political awareness of those that have been disenfranchised, the way that so many people took agency, for the first time, in their political future.  Those that are rarely heard packed up and went to speak with ballots, and that was deafening.
Tuesday was probably the most American day in the history of this country.  See, the one thing I love about voting is that people don’t get to pick where they vote.  You gotta go where The Man says to.  That means that the self-selection that has me living in a neighborhood full of white people I never see at the gas station or grocery store wasn’t going on here.  It made voting lines the most diverse places in many places, people coming together because they had to.
And man, I saw every bit of America you could imagine.  Never again will I see that diverse a group of people, not separated by race or class or anything else, together for the same reason, all excited about what they were doing, even though they were really doing different things.
People care now.  Part of that had to do with Obama representing the inclusive vision of America that had been sold but never delivered.  Part of it is out of desperation, with the economy eight shades of jacked up.  But whatever it is, it is here.
So what now?  Down to keep it up?  You better be, or else Obama is gonna be just like the rest of em.  He got unequivocal black support without saying very much to us.  Time to make sure he knows those votes weren’t donations.  They came with an implicit agreement that he better keep up.  Otherwise, he could be a great President, but he’d just be another President.  You repay those that got you where you are.  Y’all better be sending him bills.
Obama won this election because he won nearly every black vote and 2/3 of the Latino vote.  That overcame what happens every year, white people voting for the GOP at about a 3:2 clip.  Yeah, there were a lot of white people down with the Obama program, but let’s not extrapolate too much from who 43% of the white population voted for in an election that should have been a landslide.  Things are certainly better than they were 40 years ago, but I’m not sure why that’s something to brag about.
Those that so often haven’t felt so American changed American history.  You may not feel pride reading that, but that doesn’t matter.  It’s what it was, and it was a power move like few other in the United States.  Just…damn, man.  Damn.
Today is a day to believe in America, even if you’ve never done so before.  But give all credit where it’s due.  Congratulate Barack Obama on his amazing campaign and his new office.  Congratulate yourself for whatever you did to aid the political process.
And so there’s no confusion, I’m not leaving white people out of this.  A lot of wonderful people, some of whom were quite courageous, came together to help Obama make this happen.  This was, if nothing else, a day that spoke to inclusion.
Should have been like that the whole way, and I can’t lose sight of that.  I’m not one for giving people credit for acting right.  At the same time, I know of people ashamed to tell their fellow white friends that they were voting for a black man.  In such a world, those that stated their affection for Obama loudly and proudly deserve credit.
It’s show-and-prove time for all of us.  So what now?