Barack Obama
The day President Obama was inaugurated, I remember being home at my apartment in Midtown, Atlanta. I don’t even think I was off that day, but I should have been. I was standing while watching him take his oath, almost as if I was taking it with him. I was so in awe of what he had accomplished. I cried and prayed as I stood there. I kept worrying about him being killed. I prayed they wouldn’t kill him. As happy I was for him, for me, for us, I was afraid to get attached to the idea that he was really the president because I feared it would be over too soon. We had waited so long to be seen as intelligent and good enough, and worthy, that I didn’t want them to take anything else from us after all that it took to get him elected.
Sometime later, in his first 100 days, I remember that Mary, my regional manager, stopped by our office to check in on things as per usual. I truly admired Mary at this point in my career because she was so sharp and decisive, and I enjoyed how I could feel her thinking. A year prior, I applied for a promotion, and I didn’t hear from her about it for weeks. One day, during one of her visits to that office, she stopped in to sit with me. She said, “You need to focus on your job here; the job that you applied for is not just up to me to decide. You will need VP approval, ownership approval, basically everyone, including God, to get that job. So focus on what you have here.” I was a bit taken aback for a moment, but I took a breath and told her that I had in no way lost focus on my current position. Yet, like anyone else hoping for financial security and job satisfaction, it would only be natural for me to put my name in the hat for consideration, especially since I was qualified for the job. She said, ok. But, she wasn’t done with it, I could tell. She called back later, while I was away from my desk, and she left a sincere enough apology on my voicemail. I saved it for a long time because it made me feel seen. After that conversation, things changed. She not only sent me off to travel to help take over some properties that the company had recently acquired, but I also got the job she told me to forget about.
By the time Obama was in his first 100 days, I was promoted again. It was during that time that Mary visited, and I lost all respect for her. She was in the office rushing around, not pleased with what was going on. One of my co-workers made some complaint, and she said out loud, “racism doesn’t exist anymore; the president is black.” I could say that I was surprised; however, I wasn’t. At the end of the day, Mary was white. It didn’t matter how well she could dissect a set of financials, negotiate a great deal, give you a detailed strategy on how to fix anything related to multi-family residential properties, or even how good of a mother she was. She didn’t have to care about the black issue or need to embrace empathy for others because she was white.
I was naive to think her apology a year prior meant that she saw me. Many black people believe that because their white boss or white friend accepts them, that means they accept black people. Let me be clear-- it doesn’t. Barack didn’t cure the problem with racism in this country, and neither will Kamala. Racism has never been the problem that any person of color needs to participate in fixing, and that includes providing racial education. Spirituality teaches us that you can never return to a less aware state of being. If this is true, what will our white counterparts do now that 2020 taught them that racism is still a problem for everyone? Will they use this awareness to elevate their existence enough to make space for true healing and equality? Only time, the one thing we don’t have much of will tell.
Where were you when Obama was inaugurated?