My Goodness....

My mother was always very proud of the first presidential ballot she cast in 1932 - for Norman Thomas, the Socialist candidate for President. The first election in which I participated was in 1960, and I cast my first vote for John F. Kennedy. As one result, one of my uncles stopped talking to me for several years, and given his political views, I did not consider that much of a loss.

A great many young people cast their first ballot yesterday, and it had an impact; they will never forget the experience and the result. Their children will grow appreciatively tired of the story but will remember it.

We woke up this morning, a little groggy, but with something of a sunrise streaming in through the windows. And we knew in our brains and in our hearts that something important happened in and to America yesterday.

It doesn't matter which side we were on - it really doesn't. What does matter is that we try to slip past the post-mortem clichés of election analysis and understand that a great many Americans stepped into the voting booth and voted for an African-American for the highest political office in our land.

There seemed to be few problems with the process of voting and counting; local governments were better prepared than they had been last time, and the only significant demonstrations were celebrations of joy in Chicago, New York, and in front of the White House in Washington. Joy and lots of tears because another glass ceiling had been broken.

America grew up yesterday. In the face of economic chaos, two unpopular wars, foreign relationships in tatters, civil rights diminished, and an increasing gulf between rich and poor, voters made a decision to vote for the man who happened not to be "white." For a great many of us, that choice could not have been easy, but the choice was made.

Politicians who routinely consider the the citizenry as "ill-informed," "stupid," or "inattentive" must now do a recalculation, as must countries which look at the United States as a monochrome monolith.

We are different today, perhaps better, but certainly different.

It's a start, and that's good enough for me.