O.K., so he's not as smart as I thought

O.K.--so Obama isn't as smart as I thought he was (remember I said that if he was as smart as I thought, he'd win by double digits?) Of course, I didn't say whether that was popular vote or electoral...but it would be b.s. not to admit that I was thinking popular. So...I forget who I made the bet with, but...you win.

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What do I think about this? I've always said that we don't have to rely upon the idea of "better natures" or "intrinsic goodness" to believe in the possibility of peace and human growth. Fear and naked self-interest will do it. Steve Perry said that the best bumper sticker he saw was: "Vote for the Nigger--it's that important."

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I doubt that the person with that sticker uses that particular word often...but I suspect that he used to, and knows many people who do. And understood that it wasn't a matter of wanting a black man to marry your daughter. It is the question of whether you would want a black fireman to save her life. A black tax prep lady to save you thousands of dollars. A black judge to set you free. In other words, once upon a time there was a belief, held by many, that blacks were globally inferior--that no black man was the equal of any white man. The numbers of people who held such beliefs have dropped drastically, to the point that I see almost no one with such a belief--but there is still a lot of belief that the AVERAGE black man is less than the AVERAGE white man. But you know what I see more of? Simply a sense of "I want my team to win" racism. Not drastic. Not venomous. Just a tribal sense of "us" and "them" that is far more tractable.

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When Obama started running for President, he did almost nothing wrong, almost everything right, and worked like I've never seen to create an image of himself as a plausible chief executive. Simultaneously, his ability to communicate--as powerful as I have ever seen--was creating a level of buzz that was pretty remarkable. When I first saw him at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, it was because my buddy Darnell called me and told me to watch, that I would be watching the first black President. Darnell went to prep school with Obama, and had two basic things to say:

1) He inhaled.

2) He was the same guy in prep school that he was on the national stage.

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You guys know my belief: that you can't get positive results in all three arenas in your life without having your feet firmly on the bedrock of your true nature. So being married to a terrific, smart, accomplished lady...being a self-made multi-millionare...and being an enthusiastic athlete...and having maintained his basic core personality since college...

I knew he was the real deal. You simply can't sustain a lie that long, that consistently.

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I'd never had any interest in voting for Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. So my interest wasn't based on race. But once I began to listen to the way he formulated his thoughts, naturally "resolving dualities", I was THRILLED that he was black. It was a matter of "good lord...where did this guy come from?"

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And where he came from was...America. The story of his mother's courtship with a Kenyan father was the start. America had both the freedom for such a thing to happen, was a beacon that calls immigrants from around the world, and has the vestiges of racism that create pressure.

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Under pressure, people reveal their nature. If you are balanced, you collapse your ego shell down to your core and become a diamond--created by heat and pressure. If you are a liar, or unconsciously have a false ego-shell, you crack.

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Obama didn't crack. I have no real idea if he'll make a good president, but I do know that I've never seen anyone on the national political scene who has so many of the personal characteristics I personally hold dear. I understood why so many white people were scared by the Jerimiah Wright business. Strongly suspecting that those who were most disturbed knew very few black people, had no context to understand that the black church has been, for millions, the only place in their lives where they could express the crushing fear and pain that they had to hide six days a week.

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Would I have remained in that church? Nope. But then, I've never remained in any church at all, so it's irrelevant. William Ayers? Geeze. I would have loved to see a flow chart of each candidate, branching to show all of the thousands of people politicians interact with over the decades. I would have loved to have seen the number of shady characters that popped up on the CLEANEST candidate's slate. That whole business was, to me, absurd.

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I could ramble on about this, but my happiness for Obama isn't just about him, or me, or my skin color, or even America. It suggests that under pressure, the human beings in this country were able to see beyond skin to the qualities beneath. To extend hope and faith in a way that has never been seen, to my knowledge, in the world before. A member of a visually identifiable ethnic minority, formerly enslaved, raised to the highest office in the land? Kind of like a Palestinian voted Prime Minister of Israel. When that happens, something has changed.

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My son gets to start his life with the role model that every white boy in this country has had--the route all the way to the top. Good lord. It isn't that there is any promise of achievement. There is the promise of possibility, and an open door.

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Staggering. America really is what I always thought it was. Human beings really are what I've always believed they were. This isn't Obama's moment. Or America's moment. It speaks to the possibility for all people, everywhere.

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I'll be damned. We really are made in the image of God.

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I've never been prouder, or more humbly grateful to be alive in this remarkable time, on this remarkable day. Thank you all for sharing it with me.

There are tough times ahead, but you know what? We already know what we really, really are under pressure. Bring it on.

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