Let me start off by saying it was an entirely new and somewhat bizarre experience having dozens of perfect strangers comment, criticize, and speculate as to why I cried at Obama's election--on several sites, no less. Some assumed I voted for him; others intimated that I would have had a different reaction if the person elected was a conservative; some expressed similar sentiments--and a lot of people said my reaction (and to a greater extent, the feeling of black people) is entirely overblown, if not shameful.
I'm going to leave for speculation my thoughts on all those topics. I can't very well address everyone's concerns or questions without dedicating the rest of this blog in perpetuity to making one moment make sense for everybody on the planet. However, I find it necessary to perhaps clear up one widely commented assumption that is simply not true: I am not moved by the Obama Administration and what it has in store for the nation.
I thought I had made it abundantly clear in my prefatory paragraph, but I can only guess that because I had a visceral reaction to an election, people assumed that emotion would then transfer to the resulting government put in place by that election. Not at all.
While I think Obama was marginally preferable to McCain overall, I fully expected the resulting presidency of either party to be largely a disappointment, if not an unmitigated disaster. What the vote on Tuesday said was something very positive about America, albeit with a complete and utter disregard for economics--though, neither nominee offered anything resembling economic sanity, admittedly. Basically, it was the election--not the presidency--that touched me.
So please, commenters on other blogs, stop assuming I'm an Obamaphile. Thanks.
Oh, I assumed you were chopping onions.
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