Orangepekoe

Well, Obama won. Amazing. Simply Amazing. I’m still delightfully speechless.
When the news was announced that McCain lost Pennsylvania and Ohio, people started celebrating across the country. And in New York, when McCain bowed out of the race, firecrackers went off in Jersey and all of Brooklyn screamed with delight.

The news media focused on Obama being the first black president. I woke my mom up to tell her. I loved the historic irony, I got to tell her first, a person whose childhood was in the Jim Crow south woke up from a long night to find out her country had a black president.

My nieces voted for the first time ever, they were excited about voting for Obama. They too called my mom, their grandmom and told her the good news.

And my daughter, who is bi (tri) racial celebrated her first birthday in a country where she will never know a time when no job was not open to her or that her complicated existence was not part of the general narrative of our understanding of ourselves as Americans.

Wow, all of that and I did not have to move to Canada.

But finally, we must say this, we have a president who had a student loan and danced to Radio Ga Ga in college.

There are some nice things about getting old, especially when the world deems your middle aged peers as young, but ready to take the helm.

Gen X has arrived.

Will they play Safety Dance at the Inaugural Ball?

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