It's raining tonight, but the Empire State Building is bathed in blue light.I've been an Obama supporter from the primary race, partly because I find Senator Clinton a little shrill and a little weak. I've never quite forgiven President Clinton for going down (as it were) on the gays-in-the-military issue or her loss of the reins on health care, all of which happened terribly quickly in his first term.
My support was deepened when I bought an Obama baseball cap. "I like your hat," was the most common reaction I got from African Americans, but one guy went so far as to say, "Thank you for wearing that."
This was in spring, mind you. Before AIG failed, Lehman Brothers went belly up, my bank was bought by Chase and foreclosures started to be a national pastime. Being thanked made me realize that I wasn't only dressing as an alternative to Senator Clinton. I was extending my hand in greeting and solidarity.
I AM Mary Six-pack or Josie Plumber. I own no property. My credit cards are groaning. I don't have health insurance. I worry about my teeth and the bump on Daisy's ankle. Despite that, I live in a wealthy enclave, where the per capita income is something like $45,000. Not per household but per toddler. The Federal houses and Victorian brownstones were a series of Obama posters. Last night I walked Daisy when the Ohio numbers came in. We heard cheering from the apartments above.
My brother, who I love dearly, is the antithesis, religiously and politically, of me. He once said that the East is, of course, Democrat, because all we're interested in is money.
I tried to point out -- not to argue, because our arguments last at least a year of silence -- that Democrats tend to increase taxation on the wealthy. My neighbors, who filled the streets with blue posters, are facing a certain tax increase.
Brooklyn Heights families send their kids to private schools that cost nearly $25,000 a year, then on to the most elite college the kids get into. They have jobs with fabulous health and retirement benefits. They don't need to worry about Head Start and education. They don't need to worry about health insurance or social security. They don't need to worry about the price of gasoline, their dogs' bumps, the filling that fell out four years ago. They don't need food stamps. There aren't a whole lot of moms, fathers, daughters and sons serving in the military.
They're Democrats because they care about those things for other people.
So whatever my brother meant in that statement continues to baffle me. The liberalness of people who will be paying more also continues to baffle me.
The joy last night was, however, audible and this morning, tired from an hour waiting in line at the polls before walking four big dogs for three hours, I understood what that joy will, in part, mean.
Daisy and I turned left and the first person we saw was her pal Kanga. Kanga is the super two apartment buildings down and he speaks fluent Labbish. Her butt started to wiggle and she was bucking on her leash, which I dropped so she could zoop straight to him. He was sweeping the sidewalk and hanging out with his grandfather. "Congratulations!" I said and he broke into such a big grin I thought he'd start to wiggle his butt. We shook hands, then I shook hands with his grandfather, who raised him when he was abandoned by his mother. "It's a new day," I said and we both started to cry. Then he turned to his grandfather and said, "I wish Grandma had lived to see this."
I was stricken at the same time I was alerted to an alteration in the fabric of my small life. How many African Americans are celebrating but also mourning the facts of those who didn't make it to see this day? On the other hand, this was the first time I spoke with his grandfather and we were formal in our shared elation. More importantly, we could admit they were Black. On the way to pick up Henry I congratulated another man, a stranger, and he thanked me. Another head bobbed up from the car he was inspecting and he, too, called out, "Thank you!"
And they were, in fact, thanking me. Thanking me for...congratulating them, recognizing it was their day, an historical threshold, a new dignity. Thanking them for not just walking by as if they were invisible, a thing I do to 98% of the people and dragons on the street anyway but not today. Today one word admitted our difference in color and our hope to make that immaterial. One word recognized the specialness of their color.
As a fat person, I loved it! There are franchises for everyone. No one has to accept invisibility or indignity.
My heart is overfull today. I almost can't carry it any more. I have had pride in many things the United States has done...in the past. The Battle of the Bulge. The Declaration of Independence.
But until today I don't think I have been proud to be an American.
In an elevator later, I realized that we could not have elected Senator Obama without Black people nor could we have elected him without White people. Not to mention the various Olive, Brown, Yellow and Red people who came out and voted against their histories of discremintaion and non-inclusion.
Many many many people did this, one poll lever at a time.
And by the way: Kanga was sweeping up glitter.