Obama: the hope (seriously) he brings me

Yesterday, I posted the negative view of what could happen with this new president. Today, I would like to address the positive side.

You'll notice I didn't capitalize the word "hope" - that's because I mean it in the literal sense, not in the political slogan sense.

I believe that racism - traditional, institutional racism - has been vanquished in America. This happened long ago, and I saw the evidence of it. Yes, we still have the vestiges, prejudice born of ignorance and stupidity. But we will always have those people, just as we will always have rude people, dishonest people, selfish people, hateful people. But that is just racial prejudice, it is no longer an "-ism." The paradigm shifted long ago.

But humans are motivated by fear. This goes for all of us. I think that much of prejudice is born of fear - I remember most expressions of racism had to do with what people of other races might do to us if they had the chance. That is gone. We still fear crime, but it isn't tied to skin color anymore. We might find ourselves afraid because of what someone is wearing, or how they speak, and so forth - but it is very hard to imagine being afraid of a black man or woman who is dressed nicely and speaks politely, and the same goes for all other races.

But that fear goes both ways. Hundreds of years of very real mistreatment by the white race, including slavery, unequal opportunity in work and housing, and violence. How easy can it be to just forget all without some real evidence that America has changed?

This election of a black man has the potential for providing that evidence. If white America cast enough votes for a black man to elect him, then that says something very clear about prejudice. You simply don't vote for someone if you fear him because of his skin color.

Now, I still have my reservations about whether he will keep his oath of office. This is because beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, no president has acted to preserve or protect the Constitution, as required by his solemn oath. And with Obama's tendency to socialism, I don't have much hope that he will change that tradition of ignoring the obvious meaning of that document except when it serves the party's goals. But you never know. Perhaps God will inspire him to do just that and restore America to its roots.

And that's the meaning of "hope," after all.