I was driving home Saturday night from a gig at C-SPAN and as I listened to the blues station stuck in traffic on Constitution Avenue, I realized that I was staring across the south lawn at the White House. As I sat there, the thought hit me like a thunderbolt that all our talk can soon become real. Barack Obama may very well be living in that house come January 21 next year.
I thought about how much things have changed in my lifetime. I remember being 7 or 8 years old when a bus with the first black kids coming to my school in Detroit arrived one Autumn morning amid angry shouts from the neighborhood moms of "Go home nigger." All these years later I remember the frightened faces of the black kids on that bus. I remember my dad having vicious arguments with my grandfather over race. Of course my grand pa didn't just hate blacks, he hated everyone pretty much equally. (Old Edward made Archie Bunker look like Desmond TuTu. ) And I thought about my own jumbled attitudes over the years; fears and angry reactions that have not always comported to my better angels.
Sitting there on Constitution, looking at the taillights stretching towards Virginia: I was hopeful. I was proud of my country. I was looking forward to January.
I thought about how much things have changed in my lifetime. I remember being 7 or 8 years old when a bus with the first black kids coming to my school in Detroit arrived one Autumn morning amid angry shouts from the neighborhood moms of "Go home nigger." All these years later I remember the frightened faces of the black kids on that bus. I remember my dad having vicious arguments with my grandfather over race. Of course my grand pa didn't just hate blacks, he hated everyone pretty much equally. (Old Edward made Archie Bunker look like Desmond TuTu. ) And I thought about my own jumbled attitudes over the years; fears and angry reactions that have not always comported to my better angels.
Sitting there on Constitution, looking at the taillights stretching towards Virginia: I was hopeful. I was proud of my country. I was looking forward to January.
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