The night Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States, I was standing in a classroom full of students. I was teaching a night class in Abnormal Psychology and I got word that the election was about to be called. I stopped the class, logged onto the internet on my phone, and turned the volume up as loud as it would go. I didn’t want any of them to miss the moment. We had just elected the first African American President of the United States.
I thought of that night yesterday morning, when the state of Pennsylvania was finally called, a moment we had been waiting for for days. Obama’s partner that night, Joe Biden, would be the 46th President, an office he began running for more than 30 years ago. The former Vice President, people have said, is uniquely qualified for this moment, when the country is facing some of its darkest days ahead. Biden has certainly faced his own share of dark days and I imagine he will draw heavily upon the strength he gained in those moments as he plots the path forward. The country needs him to succeed.
And he will have the first female Vice President in the history of this country, the first woman of color by his side. It is a moment that is long overdue. For the first time in our history, little girls can look at Kamala Harris, our Vice President Elect, and know that there is no place they do not belong. No goal they cannot achieve. No dream too big to realize.
We face serious challenges ahead in the effort to make this country “a more perfect union”, in pursuit of a society that works for all of us. A country free of hate. Of division. Of fear. As a social worker, it is the work I chose to do. To make the world a little better, one day at a time. I know, you’re saying we’ll never get there. Maybe not, but I believe it’s worth fighting for.
After Barack Obama was elected, I naively thought we’d turned a corner in this country. We’d finally made peace with the racial hatred and division that had plagued us for so long. But I was wrong. The last four years have been very painful for many of us and the country could not be more divided. I, like many of the people I know, have struggled to hold the hope that there were better days ahead.
As the Rev. Martin Luther King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Progress is not a straight line. It happens in fits and starts. On Tuesday we lurched ever so slightly forward. We elected the first female Vice President of the United States. We made the choice to change course. To confront hate. To fight for justice. To work to leave a healthier planet for our children and grandchildren. We voted for truth. For science. For dignity. We voted to restore the soul of America.
To bend that arc a little more towards justice.
