Still We Rise.

I almost forgot that Barack Obama was black until that was all anyone could talk about after the election. While I might have felt a bit of frustration with that kind of overwhelming focus, it is pretty darn amazing.

During his acceptance speech he began to tell about a 106 year old woman who voted and I was all thinking, oh great, here we go, some sob story about a lady who had to be carried on a stretcher to the polling place to cast her vote... and then he started to explain the things this woman had experienced in her lifetime and suddenly my face was streaked with tears. When she was born her freedoms were restricted for two reasons, she was a woman and she was black. And he proceeded to walk us through American history through the eyes of this woman and it really hit home. This is a landmark presidency. I knew that it would be, but I've just been so focused on my fears of a country led by McCain and Palin, on my fears of an American public who wouldn't do the right thing (just as they didn't 4 years ago), on my fears of people's hidden racism or religious fervor that would suggest they couldn't vote for a democrat because of the abortion issue. When it was all over and the race was declared for Obama I was a bit stunned. And though I know the hard work is not over, I know we've got a chance.

Despite the fact that this election was never about race for me, I was moved by Maya Angelou's poem she read on The Early Show on CBS on Nov. 5th. I'd heard it before, but it was pretty powerful in context.


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Here is her poem:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.