We're Still Taking It All In

I have covered many election nights -- don't want to admit how many -- but it's ALWAYS been exciting to me. And to be honest with you, it does not much matter to me who the candidates have been, at least in a professional sense. You have that tingle of anticipation all day, and then calling your friends and contacts for intel (which is a fancy way to justify gossiping) and then it's down to business in the evening. And then the next morning is a mixture of relief that it's over and sadness that it's over. You're always ragged out and sort of sick from too much caffeine and junk food and too little sleep, buzzed about having an excuse to do what you do and do it intensely, and not having to apologize for being so deep into minutiae of which precincts have reported in Ohio have reported, and what happened in Florida.

The difference this year is that just about EVERYBODY was into it. It wasn't something you had to apologize for or explain; you didn't have to promise to get back to real life when it was all over because, it was EVERYBODY'S real life ... just about.

And that's not the only thing that different. I received this email from a friend:

All the stories from my family's experiences that became my personal constitution began playing across my mind ... I lost it. All the personal feelings I compartmentalized for months, to do my job -- even burden I was taught to carry as a member of the black educated class -- poured out. I felt the vindication for all the humiliation, insanity, personal destruction, death that people bore -- sometimes willingly -- on my behalf, and I felt it in my bones.

Here's another from another friend, saying how she generally goes numb at big moments. That it's kind of her way of protecting her equanimity. And then:

And so, by 8:45 p.m. Tuesday night, when it became clear that by beating John McCain in both Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, Barack Obama was poised to become the first African-American president of the United States, my mind went blank. And then the tears came.

The tears were not only for my father, who died years too early to see this day. My tears were for Fannie Lou Hamer, the great grassroots activist, who endured a brutal beating by a white sheriff in Mississippi in 1963 because she tried to register to vote. For Shirley Chisolm, the black congressman from New York with the gap-toothed smile, who ran for president in 1972. For Jesse Jackson, whose path-breaking runs for the White House first galvanized millions of white voters in support of a black presidential candidate.

My tears were tears of absolute joy -- pride at this amazing accomplishment.

I think I know as well anybody that Barack Obama was not everyone's first, second or third choice for the presidency. Some of that is racist ... let's just get real shall we? Because why else would people be talking about him planting a watermelon patch in the Rose Garden and all that other nonsense. (If you don't believe me, check out Maureen Dowd's column today in The New York Times)

But let's just say that's just a few ignoramuses and that some people just didn't like him, trust him, or think he has what it takes to lead this country at this critical time. That is their perfect right, and we need to respect the right to make critical judgments about such an important position.

But can you let this fireman's daughter, this black girl from Brooklyn have just a minute? Just a minute to acknowledge all those who did give him, and people like him and people like me, a chance? All those who said, yeah, I don't know anybody like you, but I like what you say and stand for, and I'm going to give you a chance?

Can I have just a minute to think about the people who wouldn't rent to my mother and father -- a WWII veteran and a firefighter for the city -- when they first brought my sister home from the hospital and needed more space than they had in their cramped newlywed apartment. Or the little girls who turned their noses up at us when my parents went looking for a house to buy and ran away screaming, "Ewww niggers..."

And can I take just a minute to think of the people who gave me, a little girl from inner-city Brooklyn with a lopsided 'fro and cheap platform shoes, scholarships and opportunities and respect and chances to shine? Can I take a minute to think of the teachers and the scholarship donors and the people from all races and religions and backgrounds who sacrificed and marched or just silently prayed and did the right thing to bring us to this day and time?

It's so hard to take it all in ... because it's all part of it, isn't it?

Can I have a minute?

Michel Martin

2:19 PM ET | 11- 6-2008 | permalink

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2:19 PM ET | 11- 6-2008 | permalink