Playing out the Race Card

To set up a blog in October of 2008 and then let the election of November 4, 2008, pass without comment would be … a bad decision. So!

We are redeemed.

Without question, the biggest stain on, the most troubling hypocrisy of our nation’s history is this: we (or more literally, some of our ancestors) attempted to establish a new nation under the principles of the Enlightenment while compromising to accommodate slavery.

For over two centuries, the resulting contradiction has plagued us. It has distorted our fundamental desire to honor merit. Often, it has made our hopes for a just and free society seem like nothing but nonsense.

Perhaps we could not have established anything without that compromise. Perhaps two centuries of struggle were a historic necessity. Perhaps.

And perhaps we are done.

Barack Obama was not my candidate of choice, for several reasons. None of them concern race. Had Colin Powell agreed to run top or second on either ticket at any point in his career, I would have been as enthusiastic a supporter as Obama’s supporters are now.

But in US elections, regardless of who you favor, when the results are in, the President is your President. And I will be thrilled to call Barack Obama my President, too.

Let us all do everything within our power to make his a successful Presidency.

[And let’s keep working on the gender card, too.]