Letters from Grenada

(Sam Flores Munk)

At 11:51 PM on Tuesday I typed the last words of my liveblog and finally stepped away from the computer. The networks had called the election. I had confirmed it on Twitter. I wasn’t celebrating yet. I was cautious.

But then the miracle happened. Mere minutes after the call, John McCain delivered his concession speech. When he said “the American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly. Barack Obama is the future,” it clicked. The election was over and we had won.

Right after McCain’s speech, MSNBC cut to this:

The moment when Keith Olbermann said “This is man on the moon” is forever burned on my memory. I had been tearing up through McCain’s speech, but with those words — This is man on the moon — the dam broke. I burst out in a sob – “I was so scared!”

YingYing looked over at me, a little alarmed. “I knew you were too calm!”

*

Obama’s own speech was so amazing that I’m not even going to try to write about it at length. Every word was beautiful. He looked so tired, so somber, like a victorious General. I thought that he must be so sleep-deprived, and that he’d just lost his grandmother, two days before. Two of the shortest yet longest days of his life, I’m sure. I plan to watch the sppech again soon in its entirety but I do fear doing so at this moment. My eyelids are still swollen.

On Tuesday night, the line that brought me to a new level of joyful sobbing was:

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours: “We are not enemies, but friends… though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.”

I loved it when he addressed the people who had not voted for him and said he was their President too. I loved it when he addressed the world. I was thrilled when he mentioned hard work and sacrifice.

*

I have never before in my life been especially proud to be an American. I went to a little hippie private school where we read Chinua Achebe in middle school and were encouraged to think of Christopher Columbus as an intruder. My speech tends to be peppered with phrases like “crass consumerism”, “economic imperialism” and “bourgeois bullshit”. This is not, however, to say that I ever have been or ever would be anti-American. There is room for dissent and discussion, and, most importantly, historical honesty, without condemnation. I can disagree with, rail against, and make fun of Americans and America and her leaders all I want. If I didn’t love my country, and if I hadn’t for most of my life seen the world in a way that led me to mourn our lost promise, I wouldn’t be so profoundly troubled by all the qualities we lack. I am 31 years old, which means that I have lived most of my adult life with George W. Bush as President. I have never before for a moment felt we had reason to truly hope.

All of that made me sad. I wanted American exceptionalism to be more than something I had read about.

The only event in my experience that matches this election in intensity and significance is September 11th, 2001. This election, of course, is slightly less shocking and good instead of bad. But beyond that there are so many similarities. The eyes of the world are on us. Everything is different now. There will forever be a line of demarcation in my personal history, before Obama and after Obama. I am drowning in the overwhelming conviction that nothing will ever be the same, that I am a part of history, a global citizen. They are such utterly distinct events, yet they are the two times I simultaneously felt hugely and viscerally connected to both other Americans AND the rest of the world.

Over the last few months, ever since the summer, I’ve spoken to an uncountable number of people who assured me that this could never happen. Most were Grenadians, but others were English, Australian, French, German and Venezuelan. NOBODY thought we could do this. Nobody.

They thought very little of John McCain, less of George W. Bush and even less of the U.S. electoral process. They said Americans were too racist. They said it was more likely somebody would kill him. They were enraged and horrified by Sarah Palin. They said Americans were a bunch of rednecks. I couldn’t believe they knew that word, and didn’t feel at all comforted when they added, “But of course not you, Maria”. I joked about pretending to be Canadian, but it wasn’t funny. It was a total buzzkill.

“Trust me,” I told the Australian. “It’s different this time, I promise. This is the real thing. He’s going to win.”

His response was something like: “That’s the trouble with you Yanks! Listen, that’s what I thought in 2004. But then you bloody idiots re-elected George Bush.” Not really much you can say to argue with that.

When I told a German couple that I was voting for Barack Obama and expected him to be the next President of the United States, they looked at me with expressions usually reserved for those with head injuries.

A Grenadian guy, about four weeks ago, said to me in a friendly, conversational manner, “It’s allyuh who went in Iraq, ent?” Well, yes, but I personally have nothing to do with that. More Grenadians that I would care to admit uttered to me nearly identical words, “Americans will never elect a black man President. Never.” During these conversations I found myself uncomfortably conscious of my white skin, which is unusual for me, even when I’m the only white person in a group of 100.

I never stopped believing. I never gave up hope. But man oh man was I worried. I was worried in a jaw-clenching, neck aching, visceral sort of way.

I never had the pleasure of arguing with a McCain supporter. All I had was people who thought Barack should win but couldn’t. They hoped he would, but they thought Americans just plain weren’t ready to elect a black President, that we were too racist – simply unprepared to elect a black man, and if by some miracle he were elected, there would be riots or worse. I secretly worried it was all true. I felt ashamed.

Caribbean Lionesse phrased it elegantly when she wrote:

“‘The United States is inherently racist’ went the meme. ‘At some point this dream has to stop.’”

“Like many, even most other people around the globe and certainly the majority of black people, I did not think that Americans were ready to elect a black president. I was convinced, as we all were, that you could not overcome your ‘original sin’ of slavery that has tainted racial relations for all of your existence.”

Jdid, a Caribbean Diaspora blogger, wrote a beautiful and brilliant post – joyously titled Mountaintops – of which the following is an excerpt.

“Obama has shattered a glass ceiling beyond most of our wildest expectations and the same way that some expect that we black folk should accept a collective shame and guilt whenever some random black man commits a crime well why shouldn’t we now embrace Barack’s victory, an achievement that gives us pride? So as I said his victory is mine and I cheer loudly and unabashedly for him.

“We have a new hero. Especially for us who are here in North America as minorities. We no longer only need look to foreign leaders or dead African kings and Pharaohs or Marcus, Martin and Malcolm to point out to our children what black people have and can achieved. We have a real live person closer to home who isn’t a rapper, who isn’t an athlete, who isn’t an entertainer who we can say has achieved the impossible, defied the odds, made it to the very top and looks like you and I. We can look at our children and point to Obama while paraphrasing his words Yes you can.”

This is a stunning and eloquent example of how much this means to everyone, how universal this victory is. (Both posts – Jdid’s and Caribbean Lionesse’s – are worth a complete read. Jdid left me in tears and Caribbean Lionesse starts out with the heart-stopping line, “America… my bad. We were wrong about you. We completely underestimated you.“)

*

Oh, how bittersweet it was to watch this election from afar. I was in New York for the best part of the primary season, but I flew back to Grenada in May and have been here ever since. I miss some of the little things I would have experienced had I been in the States on Tuesday. Like, I voted, where’s my Starbucks? Like, where are all the yard signs, bumper stickers, t-shirts and print newspapers? I would have loved to have attended a rally, of course. I would have jumped at the opportunity to volunteer – though I did do what little I could from so far away. I missed going over all of this with a fine-toothed comb, with other Americans, in person. A sip of the shared excitement, that’s all I wanted.

But the truth is, I got to share in the excitement anyway. My emotions are still running over. Days later and I’m still welling up with tears. I am so happy, so excited, and so damn proud of my country right now. We did it! Yes we can and YES WE DID!

My little life can now go back to (what passes for) normal. Catch up on email, find my tongue ring, check out that Montessori school for Jack, think about Christmas and fix my Macbook – which remains as yet untouched. Get back to blogging about Grenada and writing my book. Spend some much needed time in the sun. Pore over my favorite gossip blog instead of my favorite political blog. Watch House instead of the news.

But at least once a day I will remind myself, “President Obama. Wow.” The more it sinks in, the nicer it feels.

*

This is what I look like when I've been crying happy tears for hours. Taken with Photo Booth around 1:30 AM.

Posted on November 7th, 2008 under Grenada • Tags: 9/11, caribbean, election, expat, family, global, Grenada, international, living abroad, living in Grenada, LOL, love, obama, other blogs, PHOTOS, politics, racism, world. •  Print This Post •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback