> A young black male (probably between 18- 25) came into the office after
> standing in line for hours to early vote. He noticed our office and he just
> felt like talking. He told me he had just voted and that he hoped Obama would win. Then he said quietly, “Even if he does not win, he has already changed my life.” As he spoke, tears welled up in his eyes. He continued, “This campaign has been the first time in my life that white people don’t seem afraid or suspicious when they talk to me. Since the rally in Tampa, there is a different feeling and white people seem more comfortable with young black men like me.” As he
> spoke, my eyes filled with tears too and he could see them. We both knew
> that the other was crying, and we both knew, without having to say any more,
> how profound was the change of which he spoke. I held my hand out to him. He
> took it and then we just started hugging. After a few seconds, we pulled
> back, and he looked a little embarrassed. I thanked him for telling me his
> experience and, of course, asked if he wanted to volunteer. He did.
>
skip to the victory party on election night:

> By this time, I had already begun to weep, but once John McCain gave his
> concession speech (the crowd, by the way, was quiet, respectful and did not
> boo him) – I just lost it. I could not stop crying , and I mean really
> crying. It was as if some terrible pain I had been carrying with me for the
> last 8 years was suddenly lifted from my heart and soul. There was an
> immense, almost palpable, feeling of relief.
>
> Still, for me, it was about Obama the candidate and the fact that we were
> going to return to the kind of country I want us to be. But then, Obama
> began his speech and his family joined him on the stage, and I lost it all
> over again. Uncontrollable sobbing. I can’t even explain exactly what I was
> feeling, but I am weeping as I write this – it was (and is) about the
> realization that the American people were able to transcend race and vote
> for the best candidate. That the American people responded to hope, instead
> of fear. That despite our complex, and often tragic, racial history, more
> than half of us had come together to vote for the best candidate and the
> fact that he is a black man did not stop us from electing him.
>
> I felt prouder of our country than I have since I was in high school. (back
> then I got to work for Robert Kennedy as a volunteer in his office on
> Capitol Hill because of a letter I wrote him, and back then I hadn’t really
> started thinking about Vietnam yet – it was 1965-66 – so I was full of
> American pride and optimism and belief in the good we could do in the
> world).
> Again, I felt as if some sort of weight was being lifted from me and I
> realized how much the pain of our racial divide has affected me. (Not that
> Obama’s election solves everything, but it is such a big step in that
> direction). I literally could not stop sobbing. A reporter from somewhere (I
> don’t even know if it was a paper, magazine, radio, etc) came over to me and
> said, “you look as if you have been waiting for this for a long time.” I
> don’t remember exactly what I said, but I know I talked about the last 8
> years and also about America finally showing that we can be the country of
> our ideals. I think I said, that I had been waiting for this since the 60s
> when I BELIEVED that we COULD CHANGE the WORLD.
> The amazing thing is after watching the news on the 5th and 6th, I realized
> that in a way, we did just change the world. For whatever reasons, electing
> Obama has brought new hope to the world. I could list many reasons,
> including the fact that we are ending 8 years of terrible foreign policy.
> But, I think it is more than that, and deeper than that. I think when a
> country that was founded on ideals that it has never been able to truly live
> up to, takes a big step towards fulfilling those ideals, the rest of the
> world takes heart.
> Because, in the end, almost everyone, everywhere, wants the world to be
> better than it is – more peaceful than it is, with less poverty and less
> suffering, and more opportunities for children to grow and learn and thrive.
> This is what most people want and, whether we really deserve it or not, many
> people look to the U.S. as having a major role in achieving this. On
> election night, they saw us take a major step toward fulfilling the ideals
> on which we were founded, and because of this the rest of the world smiled
> on us.
> I’m glad to have been a small part of making it happen – a tiny little cog
> in an enormous machine, but the magic of this machine is that it needed all
> those tiny little cogs to make it work.

Yoko, thanks for reading. I like corresponding with you even though you don’t know me at all. BTW, I am jangeist on Twitter.

With warm fluxy wishes
Litsa Spathi