President Obama

Watching the inauguration, I am again thankful that America is able to turn over power in a rational manner – for the most part.

I am thinking, though, about Obama being elected and now assuming President of the United States of America. When all is said and done, what is the meaning?

I say: This is the beginning of the end of black as victim and white as privileged.

Obama has, in effect, said – with his life – “I’m the one. I will be held ultimately accountable. I’m not willing to use my race to gain favor. Why? I can’t. It won’t work.”

If Obama has a good intention, by itself it won’t work. If he is not acting when he should or acting when he should not, it won’t work. And if he manipulates people as he did in the campaign, it won’t work. And above all, excuses won’t work.

Why?

Reality takes no prisoners. It is absolute. The facts are the facts. Men cannot change that. (Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan) Men can only change their relationship to the facts and the faster they correctly recognize the facts the more ably they can take actions that will work.

Among reality’s constituents are people. And they have a nature too. Fundamental to man’s nature is man’s form of consciousness – a conceptual consciousness. Every man must craft purposes and achieve them to survive and flourish. He has no choice.

In our nature we are all equal. That is where the equality ends. Each man has different capacities, different resources, different purposes. In his world each uses those to advance his life. Will Obama recognize this or will he try not? Whichever he chooses will determine his success.

Depending on his actions, Obama will forward the meaning of his election or not.

For my part whatever guilt I absorbed for being white,it is at an end. In the wake of Obama’s election I will treat my black “brothers” as I expect to be treated – accountable for my actions. It would be a step backward to not rise to this occasion and hold you to account if that is required given the new standard.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” -- Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963. (45+ years ago) That dream is now to be realized. In this context, I wish Obama great success and the country will prosper.