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I wanted to be indifferent. To the hoopla, and the rigmarole. To the scores of promises that are never kept. To the false faith that is fostered in one who shakes hands, and kisses babies, and tells people what they want to hear, in order to receive what he wants. All of the above are staid tactics in the game of politics after all, and Barack Obama is a politician.

Senator Barack Obama (photo courtesy of:www.barackobama.com)

To be quite honest, I wavered in my indifference more than once. As an early Hillary Clinton supporter, I told myself that Barack was too new, too inexperienced. Too naïve, and most certainly, far too brown to be able to galvanize a large block of people to vote for him. But much has happened since then. Clinton got heady with the possibilities and lived them as truth, and things fell apart. People actually voted for the Black man with the inexplicably brow-furrowing name, and believed in him, and in the America he believed he could get us back to. And I began listening, not just to the promises, but to the conviction behind his words, to the passion in his calculated gazes into the horizon while delivering speeches. I realized how serious he was, and how much of a threat hope can present against the perceived promise of more of the same.

True, Obama made a series of steps that made me cringe, and question all over again my new found belief in his ‘leadership’. The FISA fiasco, the botched interviews, the softness on an ever-emboldened (yet, old as hell) John McCain and a determined Republican Party. I believed I had a front seat to “The Beginning of the End”,a short film starring Barack Obama in his role as a man who has been given the opportunity of a lifetime, and somehow managed to screw up the messianic promise that had been bestowed upon him. We won’t even get into the issues of a Democratic Party divided, which seemed to spell out Obama’s defeat quite loudly.

Senator Barack Obama (photo courtesy of:www.barackobama.com)

And then, day four of the Democratic National Convention occurred, and I listened to Barack Obama accept the nomination of the Democratic Party. I watched him give a brilliant speech that galvanized the crowd of thousands at each lilt of his voice. I saw him finally, finally address John McCain head on. I saw him empathize with the plight of John and Jane Everyman and Everywoman. In the moments when Barack paused to catch his breath and survey the crowd, I saw my president.

Barack Obama has made history. Win or lose, he has become the first Black man to be nominated by a major party to become the leader of America. But, even more importantly, Barack Obama has given me a renewed sense of self, of the beauty of possibility, and the power of choices. I wrote Barack off mostly because he was Black, just knowing that America wasn’t ready. I realize now that I had written myself off, as a woman of color. I had put limits on my own abilities and dreams, because as a woman of color, I am always aware of what I ‘can’ and ‘cannot’ do; my ‘veil’ and ever-present sense of ‘double-conciousness’ are omnipresent in my day-to-day. Empowerment is indeed frightening in it’s power. I now feel able to check my reservations about my greatness at the door, and believe all over again in possibility. In mine, and in America’s.

Yes, we can. You’d better believe it.

Senator Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech