What an Obama Win would mean…

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
- Barack Obama

I sit here in a coffee shop on a Saturday, sending out news alerts to the media with accurate information to get out to voters about voting locally. As I sit here, thousands of people are standing in line across the country, waiting to cast their vote early. I have already made my plans to show up at the polls early on Election Day, hoping that there will be a line at 7 AM when I go to vote; that people will be lined up around the blocks to cast their vote and make a stand for what they believe in the most important election we might ever see in our lifetimes.

In the famous words of Barack Obama in his 2004 DNC speech, “I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us.”

Since the fateful day I first saw his speech at that 2004 convention, I felt a connectedness to the man who spoke beyond the politics as usual, who offered hope instead of fear, who called on the best of America, rather than being afraid of the worst. As someone who also has a strange name with a father with dark skin from a foreign country who emigrated to America, and a mother from the heart of America with fair skin, I share more than just politics with this man who stands on the precipice of changing history. He speaks about growing up as an outsider and it is as if my own words were being spoken. Perhaps only my own brothers and sisters can hope to know someday the kindred spirit I share with Barack Obama.

In my position as a national non-profit leader, I am called upon to remain fair to both political parties, to exercise careful consideration in speaking of politics. However, I am also asked to question the candidates on where they stand on the issues I care about, the United Nations, multilateral cooperation, environmental sustainability and the future of our planet…and John McCain did not even bother to answer the questionnaire we sent him to ask him intelligently and thoughtfully how he felt about these issues that mean so much to the globally-minded. Barack Obama answered the questionnaire with clear-cut statements and while calling for a level of reform, he made it clear he understood our interdependence in the world and that the United Nations is the forum for our global voice. He went a step above and sent a personal letter to one of my fellow national board members.

It isn’t that people don’t believe anymore. People have been downtrodden for the past eight years, given reason to think their voice did not matter with the handling of the 2000 election, which resulted in eight years of a downspiraling economy, an expensive and unnecessary war and combative relationships or total avoidance of other nation states and a loss of respect in the world. As an international traveler, I am tired of hearing, “you aren’t what I thought an American would be like.” Over the past years, our voices would be muted, but not stomped out. The downtrodden have banded together silently in coffee shops, libraries, community centers and colleges around the country, talking about our wishes and dreams for the future, never fully believing someone could stand up for these quietly spoken desires.

Barack said it best when he said, “Americans... still believe in an America where anything's possible - they just don't think their leaders do.”

Call me an idealist if you wish, but I have remained hopeful for the future all these years. From the times of my life as a little girl in the southeast U.S., praying for a brighter future than seemed possible or was promised, looking for my own place in the world with my tanned skin and dark eyes; I have always looked to the future and my fate as the sanctuary for my life. Being called “Muhammed Ali” and laughed at in school while being prodded for the curry in my lunch box, I knew that America could be better than this; I knew these moments were preparing me for a future with no limit to my success.

When Barack Obama called upon Americans in 2004 to “make the right choices,” I wonder if he knew the true power of that statement; that it would take another four years and his own candidacy for the U.S. Presidency for Americans to see their own power to vote and to choose…and for the first time in history, to choose someone untypical, someone with a different color of skin, a different personal history and origin, someone who could understand the mixture of culture and backgrounds in our country, with the ability to bring together people from all over the world, and to understand and act intelligently upon the issues we care most about, someone we could be proud of and call our own, for the highest office in the land.

I don’t know what will happen when the sun sets on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008. But I know what I will choose, and I know that I have explained to those in my life why I am making this choice and have asked them to exercise their right to vote and take careful consideration of the issues when they do. I will be at the elections office in the battleground of the country for this election, fielding calls to the media, and watching the results as they come in. In the heartland where 537 votes decided our President in 2000, I will do my job to make sure voters have accurate information, and empower them to take action to vote; all the while silently hoping they will vote for hope, and not for fear.

Americans are tired and weary of fear. We are done with the unintelligible statements that play to the lowest common denominator. We are ready for a President that calls on us to be our best, regardless of where we come from or how strange our name might be. Perhaps my idealism has been in vain all these years, or perhaps I am standing with other Americans, united at the crossroads of history, and we will see a true miracle happen with our own eyes. Someday I will tell those who come after me about this election and how I stood at a rally with 40,000 people in the battleground for the Presidency to support an unlikely candidate. I hope that I will be able to tell them that America stood up and together, brought an end to the fearful and seemingly endless road we had been on for so long – that we struggled through the darkness and the hard times, and never gave up, that when we practiced the one freedom that truly makes us “by the people, for the people,” the right to vote, we all sang out in one mighty voice like the old gospel song, “This little light o' mine, I'm goin' let it shine.”

Vote for Hope

“The UN’s work in development addresses the dire needs of one billion people living in extreme poverty…Progress and renewal at the UN will come from reform, not neglect…The United States must champion reform so the United Nations can help us meet the challenges of the 21st century. Let us provide bold and effective leadership to reinvigorate the UN so it finally achieves the potential that Roosevelt envisioned and upon which our common security and common humanity depend. The UNA will continue to play its critical role in this important effort. Keep up the good work.”
- Barack Obama, in a letter to UNA National Board Member Josh Weston