Barack Obama Is Our President

Yesterday evening when President Obama gave his speech at the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan, New York, before a celebrative audience that was honoring the NAACP’s one hundred year anniversary, the President reminded me why I voted for him.  Simply, President Obama inspires me to become the best person that I can be. In another life, Barack Obama would have made a great Baptist preacher.  Great Preachers have the ability through the use of rhapsodizing sermons to stir positive emotions that lay semi-dormant in the hearts of their parishioners. Consequently, these emotions as channeled by the Preacher in conjunction with an interaction with the Holy Spirit, creates a sense of “oneness” with God that ultimately encourages individuals to be the best that they can be. As our President attempts to guide a “ship” named “United States” through near record unemployment and fiscal pessimism, he like a good Baptist Preacher, must find a way through the use of words, to positively inspire and motivate all Americans to rise and become the best that they can possibly be. Let there be no mistake, President Obama a man of multicultural descent, is quite aware that if the national unemployment rate is 9.5, then in Black and Brown neighborhoods across America, that particular statistic doubles. 

“Change” as envisioned by President Obama, begins in the form of providing our youth with a superior education, which in turn will empower them with high self esteem and confidence. High self esteem and confidence are important personal qualities that will prepare America’s youth as they face the challenges of the 21^st century. The education of our youth should be rooted in our homes and should be directed and meticulously managed by parents / guardians who understand that it is more important for our Black and Brown children to understand the relativity of an isosceles triangle as it pertains to mechanical engineering, than prioritizing the mechanics of their child’s basketball jump shot. In order to ensure that the “circle of economic inferiority” is forever broken in Black and Brown neighborhoods, there must be a re-dedication to academic excellence as overseen by adults who are willing to become mentors to our youth.

Between 1910 and 1930 nearly one million Black and Brown Americans migrated from the South to the North in hope of creating a better way of life for themselves and their family.  During this timeframe, a Black renaissance was born from the minds of educated Blacks in cities across America.  It’s been 99 years since our first and last Black renaissance in America. If you listened closely to President Obama as he spoke to the audience, he directly challenged Black and Brown America to become economically empowered through education.  Education is the key that unlocks economic opportunities and shatters “glass ceilings”. In commemoration of the NAACP’s 100 year anniversary, and the 99 years since the birth of the 1910 Black American renaissance, let us as Black and Brown Americans today make a pledge to begin a new renaissance of education which begins in our homes, in our places of worship and in our schools. No more excuses my people, we must become more involved in steering our youth toward economic independence and global empowerment via love and via education as we take an active stand in preparing our children to be the best Americans that they can possibly be.

In closing I’d like to end this article with the last paragraph of Maya Angelou’s “Still I rise” poem:

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.