Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Why we all should celebrate the first African-American president

As part of the Moline Dispatch newspaper's 'What Obama Means to Me' feature Jan Anderson of Moline had the following to say:

...Because Barack Obama is an African American does not make him any more or less important than any previous presidential candidate and I question The Dispatch and their offer to the public to "be part of this historic event."

Every inauguration is historic but it seems that the media, including The Dispatch, has for some reason blown this one way out of proportion. Whatever happened to fair and balanced reporting?

She seems to be claiming that celebrating Obama as the first African-American president is unfair. Unfair to whom? I would have to guess she means unfair to white people.

Apparently Ms. Anderson sees no advantage to her that Americans of color can now join white Americans in realistically believing that their children can grow up to be president. She must not see it to be in her interests for all Americans to have reason to fully buy into the American dream and to have a stake in our nation and economy working well. Her limited and narrow understanding of what is and is not to her advantage and "fair" to her must interfere with her ability to choose what is truly best for her and for the nation. We can only hope hers is an extreme minority opinion and that she will eventually see the light. Perhaps President Barack Obama will have found the right words and phrases for his speech today to open her eyes to the opportunities this moment has for all Americans.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

well ill give jan her lil freedom of speech but it seems everytime a new guy is appointed president and it has always been a white guy that they usually get all of the media's attention to so she needs to stop crying like a lil baby and get the h... over it she needs to realize this a united country not just a white one so jan i hope ur eyes have been opened up u had ur freedom of speech now i have had mine ty. thanks for all the hard work dispatch and argus.

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