Obama's Inauguration: Tears for Justice

I've been crying all day long -- off and on. I was not feeling emotional prior to turning on the TV and watching the Obamas walk into the inauguration. I realized that an African American man was going to become President. This was a pivotal historical moment, and I felt very proud of it. I sobbed through his taking of the oath. I cried watching the interviews of several older African Americans recalling some very ugly moments of their life under Jim Crow laws. There is so much grief in acknowledging the legacy of slavery and systemic racism; and then there is so much pride in the recognition that we as a nation are capable of so much more. For them and for me, today was an impossible dream.

That Obama's taking of the presidential oath to protect and defend the Constitution was real, unlike his predecessor's taking of the same. That the U.S. Constitution states that all men are created equal somehow is NOT hallow rhetoric today and for that, I cry. Like many other African Americans before him, Obama is standing upon the shoulders of giants. That a person of color could ascend to power based on merit, hard work, character and intelligence is true today. It isn't just a lofty ideal or poetic rhetoric politicans recite in public, but that we can believe would be reality. Although I am not African American, I as an Asian American have experienced the barbs of racism and I know that it hurts. That's all you have to understand in order to cry at this historic moment. You don't have to be African American to understand that.

Obama's personal experiences have made him very worldly. He is very broad-minded and knows the ideological danger in thinking that everyone should think and believe in the same values and morals, which is what the Christian right wants. I'm just thrilled to have a president who has lived in different cultures and has a multi-racial family. I am sure that these factors have shaped his worldview. He knows that the whole world isn't Christian, English-speaking and has coffee and a bagel for breakfast. Some people worship cows and speak Hindi; some people have congee and chicken feet for breakfast. So many Americans are xenophobic; if any man can break through some of that xenophobia, it'll be Obama. I hope he will advance the cultural competency movement.