A Comment on November 4, 2008
BY PHIL LUNNEY I NOVEMBER 17, 2008
EDITOR'S NOTE: I received this story last week and through my own negligence didn't post it on the site until now. The sentiment contained therein is appreciated even now, and despite any personal viewpoints of my own, it stands to reason that November 4, 2008 was a historic event in this country. Mr. Lunney's comments with regard to the election and his message to the younger, of which I am a part, should be treated with proper gravitas. Hurdles remain in place for people of all races and creeds. The ubiquity of white men in the presidency, however, is over and the office no longer exists as a segregated institution. For that reason and many others, those of us who witnessed the events of November 4 would do well to remember them—regardless of political or ideological affiliation—as a catalyst for hope and the realization that our national reality can be a fluid thing as long as We, the People, do our duty.
November 5th, 2008
48 years ago, a boy named Phil went to see John Kennedy in West Philadelphia.
He was only twelve so he could not vote. But life for young Phil was most
excellent. A house in the suburbs, a safe neighborhood, except for those pesky
dogs, but no real fear and certainly, no discrimination.
When the election results became known, and John F. Kennedy won the office, his
Republican mother
asked his Irish Catholic father if he had voted for Nixon, but
his father never looked
up and did not respond. He then knew that his father
had in fact voted for Mr. Kennedy. And why not, he was the first Catholic
President and an Irishman, too.
Well, Phil grew up to be just another white guy with all of the privileges that
went with that honor. He was not some Irish street kid who had to fight or
battle the forces of oppression. You see, his father and his father's
father, a railway worker and union man, had fought those forces for him. Young
Phil had the good life.
Yesterday, some young man or woman (boy or girl), saw Mr. Obama elected
President of this United States of America. They, like Phil, will grow up
without fear or prejudice. You see, their father has fought that battle. His
father blazed a trail for him. It is a new
day. We are all brown, no matter
how white we look. For we are the world. And nowhere else in this world can
this happen. Now it is only ours to take the advantage.
Phil's daughter said to him, shortly after 9/11/2001, that there was no
better time and no better place to be a woman than right now in Atlanta, Georgia. You
see, her mother and her mother's mother had fought other battles, and they
are all freed from the chains of their past so that they too may rise to unknown
heights. You see we all step on the shoulders of our past and learn the lessons
untaught because of those who came before.
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