Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the end of an historic (a historic) race for the presidency. I've read I don't know how many articles and opinions about the candidates and their running mates. I've watched countless hours of "Frontline", "Tavis Smiley" and I've listened to friends, family and co-workers on their selections and convictions and predictions. And I've been fairly quiet about the election here on my blog and in general. Today I'm sharing my opinion.

First, a bit of my history so that you can better understand my paradigm. I am the product of parents reared in the South during the 40's and 50's. My father wasn't allowed to legally vote until he was 42. My mother, born in Arkansas, was old enough to remember the Arkansas Eight so when she moved to Phoenix and found out she would attend an integrated high school, she feigned sickness for two days until her mother finally forced her to go.

My parents reared me in a strict, conservative, Christian home and they taught me that I should try to be everything I wanted to be. But. They also taught me not to expect anything given to me and they prepared me to fight for access to schools, jobs and any other pursuit of happiness (aligning w/Christian goals and beliefs of course) my heart wanted to undertake. Because I'm a Black woman in this land of milk and honey.

Politics, race and religion are always hot topics and they bring out the best and worst of us. I don't want my blog to be part of all that. I want someplace I can go without all that because it's constantly around me so why would I bring that here? I'm generally non-confrontational and reserved but I won't walk away from a fight. Even if I don't know all the sides of the fight, when I perceive personal attack to me or my loved ones, I'm known to become extremely aggressive and sometimes nasty.

With that said, I do not believe the U.S. voter who is likely to vote tomorrow will elect Barack Obama as the 44th President. I just don't believe our country is strong enough, insightful enough, or diverse enough to do that. I've heard every side of this race there is. I've seen that Obama's leading in every poll and that the media have all but reserved their place at the inauguration ceremonies in January. McCain's prepared to become the biggest comeback kid since Dewey but that's just his spin on his campaign. He'd rather be known as the "comeback kid" than "the white guy elected because the U.S. voter was too afraid to vote for the Black candidate."

We are in tumultuous times. We are besieged with rising health care costs, our children have the poorest educational scores in the world, more than 2.2 million people are unemployed and the number keeps rising. We've lost our homes and cars, we're overweight and sick with all kinds of diseases. Our banks and airlines are failing and the government is now printing worthless money to try and keep our economy afloat. What candidate in his or her right mind would want to try and tackle all this in four years?

So, Wednesday morning I'll get up, make my coffee and peanut butter toast and read the Internet about McCain's "comeback kid" win. Then I'll worry about my job, whether the Cowboys will be able to comeback after a bye week, and which grocery store has the better sales.

Am I wrong to be so critical, pessimistic and unbelieving? I don't think so. I've been wrong before, but I don't think I am this time. I've got a whole 200 years of American history to back me up.