But I think that Obama gives ALL people hope and inspiration. That’s something that has been severely lacking for some time. I think that he will do well but people shouldn’t look to him as a savior. He can’t (and won’t) solve all of our problems. We have to do some things for ourselves, too.

On another note…..

I think the fact that Dick Cheney left the White House in a wheelchair is symbolic of he and Bush’s tenure during the last 8 years. They both crippled a nation and it’s only fitting that President Obama lead the nation into healing.

I knew you all had to gather your thoughts. I wrote that off the top of my head because my thoughts aren’t totally formulated as well.

Obama’s speech was brilliant. One of the greatest repudiation of the worst in humanity and conversely one of the greatest affirmations of the best of humanity. Those who believe in the IDEALS that represent the most noble of what we stand for as a nation were able to hear, in the starkest terms the President’s commitment to leading our nation towards those ideals and away from the politics of hatred, exclusion and faith-led policy-think Terri Schiavo and Stem Cell research.

If the 19th century was the last gasp of imperialism and the 20th the beginning of world-wide democracy, the 21′s will definitely be the century when humanity starts to see itself as interconnected and interdependent. President Obama clearly understands this paradigm and the challenges we face along the way.

I cried for many reasons this morning, one of which was the simple notion that our nation is now led by a man of vision, principle and intelligence. One who leads towards the very best in us, not the very worst. It’s about time.

On a personal note.
Obama is about 2 years older than I am and we share some very common traits. We were in the 80′s young, gifted and black. We both grew up poor and in non-traditional households. We both exceeded any expectations initially set for us. He started at Occidental College and transfered to Columbia and then went on to Harvard Law. I dropped out of high school at the age of 16 and started back to school at a community college before finishing college at Occidental College and then on to Stanford Medical School. While Obama was making Law review, I was graduating top 10 in my class.

The universe we occupied was small, I didn’t know Obama, but I knew of him and I’m sure he knew of me. We were in a unique situation. Young, gifted, aware that we had opportunities the generations of black folks before us could barely imagine. We had the audacity to believe we could be Doctors, Lawyers, Professors, one of my good friends-Stephanie Wilson-has gone into space as an astronaut. But we all felt that at some point, “they” wouldn’t let us achieve something. I never felt that I could be chair of the Emergency department at Stanford for instance, no matter how good I was. None of ever felt that we’d see a black President in our lifetime.

Then this star, this great man comes out of seemingly nowhere and changes the world, forever.

The night he was elected, I told my 2 daughters, who were about 10 days old at the time that they could be ANYTHING their talents aspirations and commitment allowed. And for the first time, I meant it.

I’ve spent decades bitter and angry with this nation for many reasons and most importantly because of it’s waste of human potential and hypocrisy vis-a-vis the huge gap between it’s ideals and it’s reality.

For the first time in my life, I feel proud to be an American. I feel like a Patriot.

That I lived to see a black man become President is one of the joys of my life. That those old heads who suffered far more than I ever did or ever could imagine under the harsh brutality of segregation, degradation and discrimination, swallowing their pride, having to live as second class citizens in a land they and their ancestors helped build, living with the fear on a daily basis that one wrong word, or look could get them or their family lynched, lived to see yesterday is THE most profound thing I have ever seen. And I include in that the birth of my children and the daily battle with life and death as the outcome in my job.

Yesterday was magnificent.

I can’t put my feelings into words. KevDog said it best. I to am overwhelmed.

The fact that there are only 2 comments (now 3) says a great deal about the significance of this event.

Purely transcendant on so many levels. Back to the silence….