I remember freshman year of college, seeing what we joked was a "shrine" for Obama in my best friend Stuart's dorm room. Stuart told us Obama would be president one day. As in most things in life, Stuart was right.
When I think about the children who have only had a black president in their lifetime, I think of how different the world must feel to them. I think about being in 2nd grade declaring I wanted to be president, only to be shot down by the boy next to me saying, "Girls can't be president - look - they're all boys," pointing to a sheet of paper with small head shots of each president. I am grateful to Hillary for trying once again, to prove him wrong.
I am grateful to Obama for his 8 years (and really so many more) of service to our country. I'll leave us with some of his words from his farewell address:
"laws alone won’t be enough. Hearts must change. It won’t change overnight. Social attitudes oftentimes take generations to change. But if our democracy is to work the way it should in this increasingly diverse nation, then each one of us need to try to heed the advice of a great character in American fiction, Atticus Finch, who said “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it ... For white Americans, it means acknowledging that the effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn’t suddenly vanish in the ’60s; that when minority groups voice discontent, they’re not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness; when they wage peaceful protest, they’re not demanding special treatment, but the equal treatment that our founders promised."
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