I know, it sounds impossible, but it’s true: it is my doing that has propelled our first black president into the White House. I’ve had quite a busy schedule, too: in between working shifts at Starbucks and Barnes & Noble, I’ve managed to vote in our first black president.
I spread the word about him when he was merely a black buzz-word floating around in the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Just like millions upon millions of others, I had an intimate, personal connection to him. I said to all my friends, “I think he would make a good first black president.” And they would scoff and say, “A black president? You must be crazy!” “Well, the fact that he’s black is irrelevant,” I’d say. “He would be a great leader regardless of his black, black skin.” I demanded people stop paying attention to the fact that he’s black and focus on his political experience. They do not understand. I understand because I care. I care about the issues at hand. Their discouragement did not stop me from inventing cooler ways to combine words into his name. Obamarama, Obamadramarama, Probama, Gobama…all me. They’re all me because I care.
You could not imagine all the hard work I put in to vote our first black president into office. I registered for an absentee ballot. I mean, I just graduated from Sarah Lawrence but didn’t want to move back home to Ohio, which I know is a swing state and could have used more of my attention, but I convinced my parents to vote for him and that’s enough, right? Then I had to figure out how to fill in the bubbles. I will say, this, though: the moment I filled in that bubble, I thought to myself, “This bubble is black…as black as our first black president.”
You cannot quantify how much I cared. I forwarded all the YouTube parody videos to all my friends, read and re-posted all the news stories that people posted on their Facebook walls, and even got a bumper sticker that I put up in my second clothes closet for everybody to see. I did my part to get the word out. Because I care about our black president.
The day Obama was elected was the happiest day of my life. I care so much that we finally have a black president, and that I can feel personally responsible for helping to end racism in this country. Now if you will excuse me, I think I forgot to lock my car doors. This consumerist emporium of a bookstore is not in the nicest neighborhood, you know.
