Nov
7
2008
Portrait of a quintessentially American family
Wednesday morning, I woke up and looked out my window, searching for signs of a changed world. It was gray and dreary; I still had to take the subway to Kendall for my game theory class, and people still shot nasty looks if you happened to get in the way. Not much had changed, in other words.
There were moments when I’d forget entirely–in the morning when I was fixing coffee or in the evening when I was cycling back from the department–and then I’d remember, and my heart would swell. It was the first day in my 26 years of living that I felt like a full citizen of my own country. I couldn’t tell if the world was different, but I knew I was.
I don’t know if what I mean to invoke is a universal of the Black experience, or the biracial experience, or the bicultural experience, or the immigrant experience, or if it just my peculiar experience.
Since I was a very young child, I felt at odds with the world around me. I always wanted to travel abroad. It was a generalized feeling of restlessness beyond explanation or reason. Maybe there was a part of me that hoped I’d find a homecoming somewhere far away, where my true tribe lived.
Since I was a very young child, I felt at odds with the world around me. I always wanted to travel abroad. It was a generalized feeling of restlessness beyond explanation or reason. Maybe there was a part of me that hoped I’d find a homecoming somewhere far away, where my true tribe lived.
Tuesday night, when Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech, I was moved (how could I not be? it was enough to make Pat Buchanan misty-eyed), but it was that image of him with his beautiful wife and two beautiful daughters that had me balling like a baby. A perfect picture of a loving a family. A family whose image will be endlessly photographed and transmitted around the world the next eight years, until it becomes absolutely commonplace, maybe even ordinary. The First Family. A quintessentially American. Like mine.
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Ahhh yes, here’s the photo I was looking for:
