When politics brought me to tears

I guess there are plenty of opportunities in a week's time to be brought to tears by all that is going on in American politics - even before all of the campaigning for presidency started. GW has Bushwhacked us in what seems to be every possible way and no one in the current administration appears to give a rat's butt. This current administration is enough to make a girl cry, heck, a horse cry.

But that's not what brought me to tears. On June 3, I sat with Babe watching Barack Obama accept the Democratic nomination for the 2008 election. At first I focused on his every word, every minute gesture, but toward the end I realized that I am raising Black children in an America that has voted in a Black man to run for president. At that moment I cried. I cried because in early 2009, we just may have a president in office that looks like my son, my nephews, my neighbor's sons. In a country that seems so hopeless for the future, if no one else sees this as a hopeful event, Black boys should.

Being Black in America isn't easy, but from my experience it seems most difficult for Black men. Our boys are often seen as slow, special education is often where our boys are sent when they don't excel in schools that honestly are not designed with their success in mind. Our boys too often fill jail cells or are lining the streets doing any and everything they can to survive, that that will surely land them in jail or a grave site already overflowing with our boys. If you don't know, our boys are typically written off by society, their teachers, and far too often their own parents because they aren't expected to amount to much. Our boys, Black boys.

Black boys became the men who protected enslaved Black women and children. They walked proudly alongside their women during the Civil Rights movement. It was the Black man, many of them in fact, who helped America become what it is today. Barack Obama was a black boy. So when did we decide to write off Black boys?

There are too many children of every race whose parents don't sit down with them to teach them who they are, who they can become and what it will take to get there. But it seems the Black boy needs it the most. Maybe by seeing Barack Obama on television being the strong, intelligent man God made him to be will inspire Black boys especially to strive for the extraordinary. Strive to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, scientists, astronauts, athletes, actors. And know that it is possible because if Barack Obama can get this close to being the leader of the free world, a little Black boy can truly do anything.