Reactions from the heartland: “…we saw our better selves.”
An excerpt of Mayor R. T. Rybak’s contribution to Minnesotans react to Election Day 2008, compiled by Susan Albright. The full article with comments by U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, Peter Bell (the Republican chair of the Metropolitan Council,) and others is available from MinnPost.com – here’s just one reaction:
R.T. Rybak: Through Obama’s mirror, we saw our better selves
An elderly African-American woman and her three grandchildren walked by me on Broadway Avenue Tuesday morning. I waved my Obama sign at her and asked: “Are you going to vote?”
She said: “I’m going to make history.” I looked at that woman, and those boys, and knew that as much as Obama is about so much more than race, we crossed an enormous hurdle that many of us can’t even yet comprehend.
It would also be a mistake, though, to think this is all about race. In many ways, it was a triumph of a country with these deep scars finding a way to see them, and the move beyond them. I first saw that a year ago in Buffalo Corners, a little town in Iowa just across the border. A van full of U of M students and I drove into town on a freezing morning to knock on every door in town.
We told them about this guy with this funny name that a couple said sounded like a terrorist, and with brochures showing someone who didn’t look like anyone in town.
And in the end, none of that was as important as who he was and what he was going to do with a country in deep trouble. A couple weeks later I stood in a crowd in Des Moines on the night of the Iowa caucuses when the announcer said: “And now, the next first family of the United States.” When that beautiful family walked out onto the stage you could feel that mostly white audience take in what this meant, and then split all of us into every color and celebrate that we could move on.
You can almost imagine the Chris Rock routine this morning:
“Oh sure, once they got two wars going, the economy in shambles and the planet melting down, they give the job to the black guy!”
Funny but not true. When we faced one of the toughest moments in our generation, a remarkable man and a remarkable campaign turned a mirror onto the American people and we saw our better selves.
R.T. Rybak, a Democrat, is the mayor of Minneapolis.
RSS - Posts