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    People around the world are celebrating the election of Barak Obama to the Presidency of the United States. And well they should, especially if they are devalued by the societies they live in or are excluded from participating in the economic, political and social activities of those societies. It has the potential for improving the lives of those whom societies scorn in every corner of our planet.

    It has a special meaning for those of us whom this society devalues. He is one of us. He has known poverty as well as discrimination, as we have. He has dealt with the classism that divides our society and he has lived on both sides of that class divide.

    He knows us better than anyone who has ever had the enormous power that he is about to wield. And we know him, too. Today we revel in his triumph as if it were our own, be we black or brown or poor or gay or have disabilities as I do.

    But we celebrate it with a caution born of past disappointments. King’s 1963 March On Washington resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but it has not brought real equality to most African-Americans; his march to the U.N. helped end the Vietnam War but it did not prevent our country’s equally unjustifiable attack on Iraq; the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act has resulted in great benefits for a few of us, but the vast majority of us are worse off than we were when it was signed.

    There is good reason to hope that because Obama has shared in our struggles, that because he knows us and we know him that his election will make the difference in our lives and the lives of the other devalued peoples around the world.

    There is equal reason to fear that he will not, that other issues or other interests with more power and money behind them will command his attention and cause him to forget the struggles we have shared and the promises he has made to assist us as we continue those struggles.

    He will soon have the power to keep those promises. We will be watching to see how he uses it. Like hawks, we will be ready to swoop down on him if he forgets us, ready to join our wings with others to lift him up and give him the strength use the pasts we have in common to build a society where all live in pride as equals.

    Ethan B. Ellis,
    NEXT STEP
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    on Wed Dec 31, 2008 1:21 am

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