An Important Day

I don't really need to say much about the election yesterday. Everyone is talking about it as one of the most important days in American history. But I do feel that I would be remiss if I didn't mark the day as important to my life.

I voted at 7:15 in the morning yesterday, and there was already 30+ people who voted before me. Facebook had a counter on the site of the people who voted, and by the end of the evening, the count was up past 5 million. And I think it's amazing that so very many people, in a nation that seemed to have succumbed to apathy, went to vote. No matter who they voted for, it was a massive demonstration of American spirit and democracy. This is also, I feel, the first time in a long while (at least since I've been able to vote, which - comparatively - hasn't been that long) that we have had two candidates that were actually likable! McCain's campaign may not have been run well but I do respect John McCain as a person and for his contribution to the country. And I don't believe I have ever seen a candidate as popular as Barack Obama, especially across party lines. The nation was so overwhelmingly for Obama, that it is amazing that this is the same country as the one 40 or 50 years ago, when the civil rights movement was only just starting to get a foothold in the nation.

People on the news said that you will always remember where you were and what you were doing when you learned that Barack Obama had been elected as the 44th President of the United States. Sam and I joked that we would have to make up a story about what we were doing, because what we were doing was supremely boring. We were just in our living room, watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's election special. But I think that is what is so great about extraordinary events. Extraordinary events happen on ordinary days when most people in the world are doing very ordinary things. Yesterday, I voted, went to school, took a kanji quiz, listened to a lecture about Buddhism, went home, and had pasta casserole for dinner. But yesterday, I watched the first African American to be elected as president.

I have always been proud of America on some small level. I love this country, even with all its faults. But yesterday, I felt patriotic. I felt excited by the prospect of voting, and a great pride in this country that was not small on any level. America is living up to its potential. And now people are starting to believe it when you say "Anyone can grow up to be president." We still have a long way to go when it comes to battling racism but, yesterday, we took one immense step in the right direction.