Barack Obama has been nominated for President by the Democratic party, and with that nomination has come a clear message by the American people--we are healing the racial divisions of the past, which have haunted and too often horrified us.
Fewer than 150 years ago, blacks were being bought and sold like farm animals in this country. Fewer than 60 years ago, blacks were being lynched for daring to "get out of their place." The progressive Northwest did not escape racism, either: in the 19th century black servants assisted their white families in making the arduous trip from Boston to the Northwest, only to find whites passing laws forbidding blacks to own land. And still we know there remain a multitude of other discriminatory practices, including policy brutality, which has reared its all-too-ordinary ugly head here in Portland in recent years.
And yet . . . now we have the very real possibility of a black man becoming President of the United States. That very fact changes everything. Kwahena Sam-Brew, a 38-year-old immigrant from Ghana, took his American-born daughter Nana to the rally last Tuesday in which Obama was declared the winner of the nomination. Sam-Brew says he hopes she will remember this moment, but says he will describe it to her: "I will tell her, 'Tonight is the night that all Americans became one.'"
We cannot overestimate the symbolism to African Americans that one of theirs has risen to become a Presidential candidate. This means that there is no limit for any black man, woman, youth, or child simply because of color. All racism is thus challenged, including the internalized racism of the oppressed that encourages them to believe the message of the oppressor.
Is the work of justice-making all done now? No, of course not. But note the press photos: we have in the throngs of young people surrounding the smiling Barack Obama the greatest measure of hope that we yet have seen for a nation to live up to the radical principles of equality on which it was founded.
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