I'm Just Sayin'…#34

Columns, Top Story

I had topics to discuss this week, but I have to push it all aside right now.

Comic book heads, as I write this, I am witness to something that I never thought I would see as a young man, let alone at any time in my life.

The 44th President of the United States is also the FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT of the United States.

Over the last few days, weeks, months…I joked about this night. I dreaded this night. I had high hopes about this night. I went to an audition for NBC’s STAND UP FOR DIVERSITY for the express purpose of avoiding this night in my own head.

But when the projections came in, and John McCain made his concession speech, tears fell down my face as I watched students at Spelman College weep openly. They fell down my face as I watched them fall from Jesse Jackson in Harlem. And they kept on falling as I thought of my grandmother, who passed away in March and how she would’ve loved to have seen this. She was a lifelong Mets fan; she went nuts when they won in ’86. I can only imagine what she would’ve said about tonight.

As a first generation American, I had been very lucky in my life to be spared a great deal of the racial baggage in our country, and while I’d always viewed race and racism with a mix of curiosity and sadness, I have always been aware of what role it’s played in our country. But now everything changes.

So many things that I thought I knew about this country have faded into vapor. They’ve gone the way of the quark. They’ve gone the way of phrenology. They’ve gone the way of Jim Crow.

It’ll probably take generations for us to really wrap our heads around what’s happened today. I can tell you this much – this is Stan Lee’s excelsior, comic book heads. This is our Brand New Day.

I’m just sayin’…what a time to be alive.