Portland Press Herald.
November 6, 2008. Page A1.
by Justin Ellis, Staff Writer.

When I was in high school, I was a student government geek. I rose in the ranks from class president to student body vice president and eventually president.

My grandmother would often joke that it was just the start of what obviously would be a brilliant political career that someday would lead to the White House.

It's the type of thing all parents tell their children, but for African-Americans, it was a bittersweet promise. In a country where we're told to believe that anything is possible, thanks to our birthright as Americans, one thing seemed out of reach because of a history of fear, ignorance and division.

Then came Tuesday night.

Barack Obama, a biracial man, was elected president.

And just like that, history happened.

In what was an unexpected turn, my editors asked me to write a column about how I felt about race and The Race.

Does that mean that as an African-American, I'm happy Barack Obama will be our country's first black president? Sure. But I want to put some emphasis on the latter part of that adjective - American - because this is something all of us should celebrate.

Still, I struggled with writing this column for several reasons. Some will read this and say the Press Herald is trotting out its poster boy for diversity and authority on all things black. Let's be clear: I'm not an authority on much of anything, and ultimately the decision to write this column was mine.

But more importantly, I don't want anyone to take my feelings as a display of my political views. Already this year, black journalists have faced absurd questions over their credibility in the face of Obama's candidacy.

Don't count me among the "Eastern Media Elites" who some political observers have said are "150 percent in the tank" for Obama. I'm decidedly unenrolled in a political party, and frankly don't think my political views should matter to anyone but me.

Which gets us back to why I wrote this column. It's because even as we've reached a point that seems to be the most divisive and partisan in recent memory, there are moments that are beyond politics.

We're looking at something historic. It's a first, one of many in the same American story that includes landing on the moon, the Wright brothers' flight and Henry Ford's Model T.

But looking back, we cannot ignore the fact that in a lineup of the 44 men who have been - and will be - president of our country, one of the faces does not look like the others.

Whether we like it or not, that is inextricably tied to our shared history, from the time some of those presidents owned slaves to the days when people died in the streets just to secure the right to vote.

While my generation saw those injustices only in the context of history books, we experienced them in new ways, mainly the glaring reluctance of our country to talk about race in any deep and meaningful way.

Though neither presidential candidate explicitly made the campaign about Obama's skin tone, the issue of race always seemed to loom just out of sight.

The basic question remained: Was America ready for a black president?

The answer came in what some political commentators called an electoral landslide. And almost all at once, people were in the streets, not marching and protesting, but dancing and celebrating.

But here's the truth: No one should be naive enough to think that by electing a black president, America has found the all-purpose miracle fix to its racial problems.

But it's a first, and that means it's a start.

It means that little white, black, Asian and Hispanic boys and girls all will have that promise affirmed - that they can be president.

I decided to call my grandmother to talk to her about Obama's victory.

"It's nice to know that before I hit the dirt that a black man will be running the United States," she said.

At 81, she got up early Tuesday and went by wheelchair to vote in what she called one of the happiest days of her life.

She's been collecting news clippings and anything else she can find to start a scrapbook on the president-elect. She suggested I send her anything I write about him.

I have long since abandoned my political aspirations for the glamorous world of modern journalism, a profession that shares the long, thankless hours and scorn of being a politician - without any of the perks of power.

But my grandmother? She's more convinced than ever that I'd have a shot at the Oval Office.

"Oh, yeah, you'll still have a chance to make it," she said.

Staff Writer Justin Ellis can be contacted at 791-6380. See his blog at www.pressherald.com