Yes We Did

So I’m watching President Obama’s final address and it’s breaking my heart.  I wanted to reshare something that I wrote back in my old Livejournal on the night that President Obama won his first presidential election.  Although we’re in a very uncertain time, everything I wrote on November 5, 2008 holds true today. I am still proud, I am still willing to fight for positive change, and I still believe in a wonderful man named Barack Obama. ❤ Please don’t forget all of the amazing things we’ve seen happen in the past eight years.  It’s been a struggle, and unfortunately we’ve seen some pretty awful things too, but there is still good in the world and still love in the world.  Please don’t let hate win.  Don’t let what brilliant change we’ve seen happen before our eyes be forgotten.

Yes We Can

11/5/2008, 11:12 p.m.

I’m sitting on my bed with goose bumps all over my body and tears streaming down my face. I’m so beyond touched, amazed, proud, excited, and just wowed over what is happening tonight. A few minutes ago I stood in front of my television in my bedroom as Barack Obama was announced as the next president of this country. A biracial man is going to be the next president of this county. I can’t even type that without starting to cry again. I hoped, and maybe even prayed, that one day we see a person of color as president. I believed it would happen eventually, but I honestly didn’t think it would be so soon. Months ago before I even knew who Obama was and the relentless political ads began bombarding our senses I had hopes that maybe tonight I would see the first woman president in our history… but this blows my mind.

I know tonight is historic for everyone in the country and even in the world, but as a biracial woman I can barely begin to explain how important tonight is to me. My parents met, fell in love, married each other, and had my brother at a time when it was still illegal in parts of this country to marry interracially. Stop and really think about that… it was illegal. They fought for the right to love each other and eventually chose to bring me into this world as well. To think that 39 years ago when my parents met and Obama himself was just a little boy that people were dying in the fight for civil rights and now we are about to have a president who was born of interracial love, an African American First Lady, and two beautiful multiracial little girls in the White House… it touches my heart. 

I have always been proud to be biracial. It has always been and will always be something that I so proudly display and never think of as a hardship. I believe it is part of what makes me the person that I am. Being biracial has taught me to be a person who loves, a person of tolerance, and person who hates the word hate because of all of the horrible ugly things people have done in the name of hatred. I adore being biracial and tonight my tears are tears of celebration. Sure, there are still people full of hatred and we still have so far to go when it comes to race relations… we all know this. But tonight we’re closer than we were yesterday. Tonight I am one happy, proud, biracial woman sitting on her bed in the middle of the night in her pajamas crying her eyes out. Tonight I am a happy, proud American.  

“Change has come to America…” – President Elect Barack Obama, 12:02 a.m., November 5, 2008

“This is our moment… this is our time…” – President Elect Barack Obama, 12:15 a.m., November 5, 2008