Nation looks to next 4 years with hope, concern

Published 5:02 pm Wednesday, November 5, 2008

On the day after “the day,” there was hope, no longer a mere election-year cliche but a sense of something lasting and real. For a black man in a Washington, D.C., barbershop who feels “it” has actually happened; for the tribal leader in New Mexico, who believes a door has opened for him, too.

There was also relief. The elderly woman who was grateful to be able to turn on her television without seeing another biting ad, who can quit ignoring the incessant ringing of the telephone.

And there were still others who never supported Barack Obama and were clinging to the idea that the nation made a mistake. That concern — anger, for some — is just as persistent and real.

The speeches are done. The parties are over. The signs are coming down. But our feelings about an election that was as ugly as it was inspiring, as monotonous as it was momentous, endure. As Americans shift from the prospect of a black president to the reality of it, it is coming home to us all in different ways.

‘It’s history now’

At the Edges Barbershop and Beauty Salon on Washington D.C.’s U Street, once known as America’s Black Broadway for its thriving black-owned shops and theaters, a group of men chatted about Obama’s win.

“We got a saying around here: It’s no longer a mystery, it’s history now,” said manager Vincent Poree, 43, who said that before Tuesday he’d never voted because he didn’t think it would make a difference.

“It’s real, man,” said one man. “It’s finally happened,” another chimed in.

Inside the small, linoleum-floored shop, a television was tuned to CNN and an Obama campaign poster still hung on a wall. Outside, a man was selling Obama T-shirts.

Akil Wilson, a 27-year-old barber, said he looked into his 2-year-old son’s eyes Wednesday morning and told him it’s a different world now.

“I was like man, yo, you never have to think like I thought, that there’s never going to be a black president,” Wilson said.

He said Obama’s achievement had motivated him to go back and finish his college degree in political science.

“You feel like you can get a little bit farther than you felt you could have before,” he said. “I have no excuse anymore, and I really see that now.”

‘An acknowledgment of all people’

It took only two words in Obama’s victory speech to put a lump in Everett Chavez’s throat: “Native American.”

“Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled … We are, and always will be, the United States of America,” the president-elect told Chicago’s Grant Park, and the world.

Chavez, 56, watched the speech from his home on the Santo Domingo Indian Pueblo in New Mexico, after spending the day talking with tribal elders about why they needed to make their voices heard, and then taking his own 84-year-old father to the reservation’s community center to vote.

He lives in a place and comes from a people who have long felt left behind, ignored rather than included. A place of dirt roads and mobile homes that needs better housing and health care, more economic and educational opportunities.

Now, said Chavez, a door has opened.

“Here is a man who is truly aware of all of the people that make up this great country … not just the whites, the blacks, the Hispanics, but he also mentioned the Native Americans. That is an acknowledgment of all people,” Chavez said.

Peace and quiet at last

For the first time in nearly a month, 76-year-old Beverly Chambers is looking forward to being able to watch her favorite daytime Bible show and answer her phone.

The campaign attack ads she saw in Wake Forest, N.C., became so frequent and vitriolic that when it came time for a commercial break, Chambers simply muted the television, closed her eyes and waited until she thought three minutes had passed. Eventually, she just turned off and tuned in another way — to her favorite classical music station.

“I have never been called as much as I have and seen as many commercials for the candidates as I have this year, and it’s just been overwhelming, I think,” said the retired preschool operator, who suffers from fibromyalgia and takes a three-hour nap every afternoon. “I’ve been under the weather, and I just needed to have peace and quiet.”

She’s grateful for it now.

‘A helluva change’

It was drinking as usual on Wednesday at American Legion Post No. 155, a magnet for vets in Crystal River, Fla., a sport fisherman’s town along the Gulf of Mexico where Sen. John McCain was the big winner on Tuesday night.

Drinking as usual until the “C” word popped up, anyway. Change.

In this hall, “There’s probably a lot of concern, maybe a little bit of fright over the change that we have coming,” said Clinton Anderson, the canteen’s manager. “This is going to be a helluva change … hopefully for the better.”

Anderson, 63, is a registered Democrat who went Republican this year. Anderson will tell you he’s no fan of welfare, what he calls “giveaway programs,” and he worries Obama will favor them. And, “of course, you have concerns about the man, Obama — where he came from, how he got here.”

He sighs, thinking hard. “The first thing you saw yesterday on the news is that Kenya is planning a celebration if Obama wins. Well, that’s great for Kenya. But I’m not concerned about them. I’m concerned about us.”

He listens to a story about a veteran in eastern Florida who was so furious about Obama’s victory, so furious that America had turned its back on a war hero, that he hung the American flag upside down in his yard.

Anderson shakes his head.

“Would I turn my flag upside down? No. … Mine flies every day, right side up, like it should. I am a Vietnam veteran. I am still an American, and I’ll always be one no matter who’s in the White House.”