Our history of race.

The fact that I want to cry each time I hear a story of someone that voted for the first time, and voted for an African American presidential candidate for the first time is an indication of how much is riding on this election.  Everyone in my camp wants desperately to hope.  

But I am also afraid.  I’m afraid of what this really means if Obama does not win.  It is the same feeling that white women everywhere had when Hillary Rodham Clinton did not win the Democratic party nomination, I suspect.  This time it will be that much more real, though, much more complete.  Everything that we have been trying to accomplish in decades of civil rights history following the technical abolition of slavery is coming to some sort of fruition here, one way or the other.  

It is an amazing opportunity and if it does not go my way, it will be an amazing defeat.  

So I worry, and I hope, and I try to keep my expectations in check, and I hope some more, and I think, but what if we aren’t enough?  What if we haven’t done it?

I read a blog post today entitled The Joshua Moment? Race and the ’08 Election.   The writer talks about the fact that the story of race is the story of America, and I agree.  If you disagree, you probably live a life of enough privilege that you can afford to ignore it.  Don’t worry, I come from this background, too, and it took me a long time to learn.  

But the fact remains that it IS the story of our country.

First, race is the single most important and consequential issue in all of American history.

[snip]

 Race has been at the core of the American story since its beginning. Simply put, it’s been the dominant force of American history. For instance, even putting aside the colonial years, the first 70 or so years of the republic were consumed and shaped by slavery and racial politics. That conflict of course led to a terribly gruesome war that reshaped America, leaving permanent resentments, hopes, and even an ideological icon in Abraham Lincoln.

Race played an equally important role over the next 100 years. As any history book can illustrate, race continued to dominate politics and the political economy throughout Reconstruction and the ghastly “Redemption” period. Moving forward, what we have come to know as “The Sixties” – one of the most culturally and politically significant and innovative periods in American history – was also forged in racial conflict.

[snip]

But on a more abstract level, race is – and has always been – the great contradiction of “America” and the American experiment. Viewed abstractly, there’s a great deal of aesthetic beauty in the “idea” of America: We were the first country organized on purely rationalist, non-divine principles. The motivating ideal of our revolution was the equality of all men. We also remain free from the oppressive legacies of caste and class that burden even our more socially democratic allies in Europe. Freedom, equality, and opportunity – these are the American ideals.

Race, however, has contradicted these ideals throughout history, even mocked them. In the American Revolution, calls for liberty came from slaveowners. Indeed, the man who penned, “all men are created equal,” himself owned slaves. During the World Wars, we claimed to fight for freedom and self-determination, while treating Southern blacks as a separate caste. During the Cold War, we trumpeted the superiority of our own values, while opponents pointed to Mississippi lynchings. Even in recent years, we preached democracy promotion as images of the Superdome mocked our words.

And finally:

The fact that a majority of America (and hopefully a majority of white people too) is willing to cast a ballot for a black candidate is more than progress – it’s one of the greatest milestones in American racial history. And it shows that there are rational foundations for hope in the future.

To me, this election is more than the issues, more than the status of my health insurance or which tax bracket I fall in.  It is more than how long it will take us to retreat from Iraq or whether anyone is thinking that critically about the role of Africom.  (And no, that’s not the name of a tech company.)

To me, this election is about faith in humanity. Do we have faith that people are created equal and deserve to be treated equally? Or, do we believe that some are created more equal than others, and therefore that segment of the *cough* corporate elite *cough* will line their pockets while the rest of us suffer?  Do we believe, not that Obama is the messiah, but that this act is symbolic and significant in defining our future as a country?  Or, will most of us think as individuals, throw the greater good to the wind, and worry about that moment at which we might become a small business owner with the relevant income and how we might impose our personal religious beliefs on the largest number of people?  I want to believe that we have it, something altruistic, something greater on our minds than whether our children might do community service in exchange for tuition.

Do we have that kind of faith?