Thursday, January 29, 2009

It's been two weeks and I feel as if I should have done this by now. I always knew that when the moment hit, I would know what to write. I am so very centric in my view that even though I am the devils own advocate, I will always espouse my own thrust first. I am now vexed.

It started so innocently. My seven year old, as pure as Jesus own intentions, says to me that "Obama is a good person, right?" Not a good black person. Not a good christian person. Just a good person. I hear half aware, as my own thought is - I hope the glass is high enough. Please, God, let the glass be high enough'.

I have kept both my children home as I want them to witness what may be the single most historic day in my lifetime. I want them both to feel the significance that I do. They don't get it!

I yell at my ten year old, " Caden, shut it. This is the single most important day in your life weather you know it or not!" He doesn't.

And my insides erupt into a tumult of anger and frustration that my seven and ten year old sons do not grasp the gravity of the event. As I fume, boiling the acids in me to a toxic point of no return, I am gifted a moment of calm where clarity trumps anger and the hand of reason falls upon me; this is my eden and I have no choice but to feed the apple to the snake.

My youngest son is white. He has blond hair, blue eyes and everybody loves the Tobester. He has no clue why Dad is worried the glass isn't high enough. He only knows he gets to skip a spelling test. My oldest is pissed that he isn't at school because he knows for certian that PE is better than watching this swill. And I am left pushing a decrepid long toothed agenda on my children. They stare at me it total discomprehension (my own word). Suddenly, it hits me like a five-six in black Jack. It hits me like Mike and I'm Robin. Race to them is trully not an issue. And as my loving, beautiful children look at their agitated and unbalanced father, I feel the need to express why this moment is more than just the election of the president, it is the vindication of the American dream to all! I want to scream that white angst has trully been subdued by the greatness of a single spirit that looks outwardly like a Starbucks delicacy!

But then I am spent. How do you explain hatred to a seven year old soul that only knows love? How do you magnify the weight of an event he compares to a missed spelling test? I, whom my closest will tell you am never at a loss for words, have wrestled with a single dilema since that day: in explaning my angst, am I perpetuating racism?

I have stopped typing................I am running my hands through my hair as I try to eloquently apply my thoughts to cyber paper. I don't think I can justly. I don't want to introduce the evil of racism to my children. A part of me hopes that if I hide the apple from them, they will never know it was ever there. That If I burry this seed of knowledge, there will be no hatred to grow in them. Part of me hopes that they can purify me before I toxicate them.

As Chief Justice Roberts stuttered my feelings, I sat quietly while my sinus infection liquicated itself down my cheeks. And I accepted that the glass was indeed high enough. My angst has no place in the dreams and realism of today. I will keep this apple from my children as long as I can. For there can be no true progress had in the fight against racism, unless blond haired, blue eyed seven year boys never knew there was a fight to begin with.