Obama's success has been so inspirational to so many people this election season. I actually started to feel people in this country had turned a corner on racial relations, and then I made the mistake of looking in on the Hidden Comments Tools here at Kos. Damn! I thought I was old enough to no longer allow this stuff to upset me so much. I guess I was wrong. One commenter with a few entries listed there just knocked the wind out of me.
I came to Boston 20 or so years ago from graduate school with quite a few reservations, having seen some of the racial tensions in the city play themselves out on national news a couple of decades earlier regarding school busing/desegregation. I wasn't sure what to expect when I got here in '88. The Clinton years accomplished a great deal in the race relations area with his focus on bringing people together and addressing racial/economic justice issues. (Perhaps his greatest achievement was providing a place at the table for minorities for the first time in more than a decade.)
Taking the subway to work each day and being a people watcher, I could actually see race relations improving as the Reagan/Bush years were swept away and replaced with a democratic administration and policies. Gang violence dropped dramatically as the economy improved and jobs became more available. Nowadays, I honestly think kids of school age don't even notice different hues of skin color anymore in the city.
Obama was welcomed here as a conquering hero just a few short weeks ago. And the waves of college kids in town are genuinely excited about his candidacy, actively participating in politics like their futures depend on it and rallying around the new generational candidate Obama. Getting off the 'T' last night after work I was noticing how truly multicultural Boston now was. The gay marriage issue died a quiet death after our legislators took it off the table last year, with presumably no real remaining opposition since a year has passed without the sky falling. With all the other huge hurdles facing us in the US, we do seem to have made progress towards being a much more tolerant society. Hopefully our blue family values have started filtering down into the red areas of the country, with many purple hues now starting to fill in around our bluest of states.
Then I made the mistake of checking the Hidden Comments here at Kos only to have that faith in our progress seriously shaken.
Sorry, I'm rambling here late on a friday as the snow piles up outside. Peace...