An Interesting Fact

I don't know how significant this is, but I find it interesting nonetheless: Barack Obama won the presidential election on November 4. My youngest sister's third child, Declan, was born almost four weeks later, on December 1, which makes him the first person in our family born in a country that had elected a black president.

Jordi got it right today when he called Obama's inauguration "the greatest American moment of the last 30 years." But I think he was approaching the issue with an eye toward our generation, those people under the age of 35 who before Tuesday didn't have a positive defining moment to point to in times of trouble and say, "See this day? This day is evidence of how great we once were, and can be again, if we just want it bad enough."

When I look at the election and the inauguration, however, I try to imagine how Declan and his sisters, Shakeira and Taliyah, will one day see it on a personal level, if they will appreciate what happened and the way it might have changed the course of their own lives. All three are biracial, and before November 4 and January 20, the idea of becoming president was just that - an idea. Now, it's a reality. They can literally dream of being anything they want, anything at all, even President of the United States, and know that hard evidence exists to back up those dreams.

Well, except for Shakeira and Taliyah. They're girls, see, and there's still never been a woman president...(which brings to mind an interesting question: if Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic nomination and the presidency, would I have written this same post about the girls and their suddenly limitless options?)