Dear Mr. President

Dear Mr. President,

You have cracked my view of America and for that I am grateful. I have grown to have a sick sense of comfort in living the wrong way because although I had hoped I never dreamed things could be right. I have lived in this country feeling like a visitor, a stranger, a refuge placed here under a system and a constitution that called me an incomplete person. I have cried here many times but the first tear of joy fell on your victory. As I have said before I don’t trust politicians, I am not a hypocrite; I am a radical so I still must hold to my own beliefs but you Mr. President changed history and anyone that can’t raise their hand to that has no pulse. My people came here in shackles and you are now standing amongst the men who once ruled over a country that condoned that fact. How strange this feels to know your face will be next to theirs in history.

Because of what I believe I have never encouraged integration, I have never felt that we needed to strive to be with them, do what they do and have what they have. I have however encouraged segregation to give Us a chance to repair our wounds without feeling the need to taint our race with their opinions and rules. But when I saw those thousands of people in Grant Park, in my city together I realized that this is not the same country that hardened me.

My niece has a white friend. I have censored myself from discouraging that relationship because I don’t want to teach her hate but I have to be honest and admit that I didn’t like it. I grew up in Englewood in Chicago, and for those of you who have never had the pleasure I will tell you Chicago was so segregated in some areas to see a white person growing up, who didn’t work in my school, was like an oddity. I grew in that segregated world never wanting to mix and even guarding myself and my secrets from these outsiders. She did not grow up in that world, for so long I feared for her future because of that but now I envy her for it. Not because I want white friends, because I feel that those youth who didn’t grow up with the barriers that I did achieved something in you Mr. President that I don’t think I can appreciate the way that they can. I see in you what I hoped for them and seeing that dream achieved is where my appreciation lies.

I have never expected much from the government before you, before you snatched that carrot off the stick we’ve been chasing for decades. I have never ever supported this “democracy”, because of you I can now remove my sarcastic quotes, democracy. I have never believed that following this system will lead us to our destination. My militant way of thinking has always steered me clear of this government and political system allowing me only to visit every now and then to vote and pay homage to those who tried to change things before me but now as I watched you break 300 in electoral votes, hope glimmered just a bit in that corner of my mind where I have dumped the lost causes. Because I still must hold up my end of the bargain for my people and fight for what is right; because I will hold you to your word and we may disagree, I will thank you now. I will thank you for a feeling I have never had, pride in the country I live in. Thank you.

The people are sovereign in America and because of what we did last night I can speak that statement as truth.