What an Obama Presidency Would Mean

As a longtime teacher of U.S. History and Government to cynical non-white high school seniors, it has always been a struggle when I talk about the foundation of the country-the Declaration of Independence and its famous statement that all men are created equal.  Out of intellectual honesty, I always mention that it was written by Thomas Jefferson, a man who owned as many as 200 slaves during his life, so there was a certain measure of hypocrisy when this became one of America's founding principles. I explain this away by writing real and ideal on the board and saying that although the reality is that we don't really believe that people are equal, we need the ideal of human equality to strive for and as a goal to sight our sights on. 

I believe that a large part of the appeal of Barack Obama, even among growing numbers of Republicans and conservatives, is that his Presidency would in effect say, we meant it when we said all men are created equal. It would say that  America does not pick its leaders because of their race and pedigree when a member of a minority group with a foreign sounding name can, through hard-work and education rise to become our nation's leader. Isn't that what America is really about? Isn't that why America is still the beacon of hope to the world? If Obama becomes President,  the world could no longer criticize America for being built on hypocrisy but on a truth that America will lead the world in reaching.