Pride

We finally have a president who represents all of us.

I can't explain to Julian why I keep bursting into tears today. It is too much to expect a four year old to understand. When he is old enough to understand, he will see the world through eyes which consider it normal to have a person of any race, any religion, any gender be president. He will look back on this time that came before today in much the same way that I look at the civil rights movement, as something so removed from his experience of the world that it is hard to believe that it happened in his parents' lifetime, in his lifetime. Just as I cannot comprehend that my mom encountered whites only bathrooms or that her marriage to my dad was illegal in some states, he will not be able to comprehend a society where untruthful lies about a candidate would be given credence by a significant chunk of the electorate simply because of his name and skin color. It will feel like ancient history to him. So I keep telling him that someday he will understand that these are tears of joy and hope and pride.

Also, when people ask where his where his grandmother is from, he won't have too much trouble explaining where Zanzibar is (it's an island off the coast of Tanzania, just south of Kenya...everyone now knows where Kenya is, right?)

Now the real work begins.