MotherSister Brooklyn

Sixty days. Only sixty days is the difference between whether my heart will burst with joy and pride at the election of America’s first black president (something that I once held out little hope I’d live to see) or sink 6 feet underneath the ground beneath my feet at the alternative. (I can’t even utter the words. Thank goodness Judith Warner can.) Obviously this election is meaningful on many levels, but one that can’t be underestimated is the simple presentation of a black man running the country that, despite its failings, remains at the forefront of the free world.

Representations of black people are quite in vogue. Literally: I was one of the many who snapped up a copy of Italian Vogue’s Black Issue. Nevermind that it wasn’t entirely unprecedented — Trace does a “black girls rule“-themed issue every year (this year’s was guest edited by Spike Lee). As blazingly bland as fashion images have become in the past decade, it was a major gesture that a top fashion magazine (of course it wouldn’t have been milquetoast American Vogue) dared to suggest that black women are worthy of The Gaze. And you surely haven’t missed the stunning array of Obama poster and street art; academics are already furiously researching and publishing articles on the significance of the political imagery. Add to that the twitterpated media attention to the ascendancy of the next generation of black politicians, and HBO’s Black List, and you might start to think we’re getting somewhere.

There’s been hand-wringing about the possibility that an Obama presidency may enable some to conveniently and complacently claim that the battles are over, lookseeanyonecandoit, what are you complaining about? I don’t know, folks; the winning of the presidency is only the beginning of a very interesting moment in our history. How many different people will he piss off in his first 100 days, in ways we haven’t even imagined because never before has the White House been helmed by someone who wasn’t, well, white? Bet: We’ll get to see all the racial and social anxieties about black people — and, obviously, particularly about black men — play themselves out in HD on a global screen, shining light into the corners where the cockroaches usually flee.

But none of that touches the simple power of observing my 2-1/2-year-old son, up past his bedtime on the 45th anniversary of MLK Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech and staring at our flat-screen TV in wonderment at the thunderous applause, looking back and forth between nominee Obama in full, fluent command and me enraptured and teary-eyed on the couch — my sweet brown boy sweetly puzzled at what the fuss is all about.