On the Obama Family’s Departure: What it Means to Me as Black Parent

As I sit here watching the inauguration of our 45th president Donald Trump with my 14-year-old-son I am not unmindful of the historic moment we are watching together. Not only are installing an impossible candidate who won an impossible election, we are saying goodbye to our first black President. As a black family the significance of this moment is not lost on me.

For the first time in my daughter’s life, she will see a white president. When I was growing up, the idea of a black president seemed almost impossible. It was nothing more than a cheap joke in a movie script or fodder for the late night shows. An easy mark because it’s near impossibility.

Obama came to shatter all that. After years of being told Americans would never allow a black man to be elected to the highest office in the land, we did just that. Personally, I never doubted the presidency would eventually reflect the growing diversity of the nation. That added to my staunch opposition to Obama’s agenda and worldview made his inauguration special, but not earth-shattering for me.

Obama allowed me to prove to my children what I knew all along – that we live in the greatest country on earth where every person has the opportunity to become the very things they’ve always dreamt of. We are not all born to the same circumstances, but even just being born on American soil puts one five steps ahead of every other person on the face of the planet. As I say often, America does not owe you an opportunity. America IS the opportunity .

As an immigrant myself I’ve always known this on a certain level, even when I was still a default Democrat. My husband and I have raised our children to believe the only obstacles for them in this country are the limitations they set on themselves and they’re own willingness to work and work hard. In a way, that is Obama’s legacy to them. His mere presence has normalized for them what was once a running joke in a Chris Rock movie.

We will never saddle our children with the idea that some nameless, faceless force is waiting in the wings to strip them of their opportunity and dignity. We will never saddle our children with the legacy of bitterness. President Obama and his family are living, breathing proof that their path has no limitations. None.

As we say goodbye to a President I vehemently opposed, I think it is important to recognize that legacy he left…and to thank him. It has been truly pleasurable to see a nuclear, loving black family in the White House for eight years, and the effect on our community’s psyche cannot be underestimated. Because of Obama and the voters of America my children will never, ever have to believe the vicious lie that they are somehow limited because of their race and because of anyone else who doesn’t like their race.

Racism still exists, but it has no power to stop our dreams anymore.

Thank you, America – for giving us that pleasure. And thank you Mr.Obama and family, for your service.

Our country has no equal in this world.

Now we move forward with a new (unlikely) president and new mandates. May God bless America, and all of her inhabitants, kindred spirits and enemies alike.

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