My good friend, Anuradha Chaddah, a native of Wilmette, IL, made the following post to the New York Times online opinion blog. We met in law school, where she was studying not only for a law degree but also an MD! She shared this message with her friends in an email, and I wanted to share it with you. Radha's voice is informed by her experience as the child of a Chinese mother, Indian father, and her marriage to a man from Trinidad. She is currently raising two beautiful daughters in New York City and is preparing to move her family overseas because of her husband's work with a major pharmaceutical company. Here is what the recent election means to her.
Yes we can.
When Barack Obama carried California thereby achieving the 270 votes required to prevail in the Electoral College, he became the first African American to be elected to the highest office in the land, the US Presidency. As I was watching the media coverage of this momentous occasion, I could not help but feel that we live in a country that, yet again, has delivered dramatically on what historically was its unique originating promise: all men are created equal with the inalienable right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Implicit herein is the idea that all citizens have the right to equal participation in the governing of this great land: each man or woman has the right to vote, the right to voice a political opinion, the right to be represented, and the right to be a representative. Our leaders do not claim their authority to lead by fact of religious anointing, feudal authority, military might, aristocratic or monarchial pedigree nor, more fundamentally, by racial privilege. We the people choose our leaders as we see fit. A functional meritocracy, one that is truer to this principal, arises when insidious non-meritorious biases such as race are stripped away.
For White Americans, the victory says we can vote by the millions for a man based on his vision and his accomplishments, period. Those who are horrified or frightened to be seeing a black man in the White House, or who are inclined to believe that he is a radicalized black Muslim could benefit from looking around at their fellow citizens and asking the question, What do they see that I don't?
For Minority Americans, the victory says that there is no office or position in the land to which we cannot aspire, that the majority of our fellow Americans support us in this aspiration, and that they will now expect no less from us. This is exactly as it should be.
When Barack Obama carried California thereby achieving the 270 votes required to prevail in the Electoral College, he became the first African American to be elected to the highest office in the land, the US Presidency. As I was watching the media coverage of this momentous occasion, I could not help but feel that we live in a country that, yet again, has delivered dramatically on what historically was its unique originating promise: all men are created equal with the inalienable right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Implicit herein is the idea that all citizens have the right to equal participation in the governing of this great land: each man or woman has the right to vote, the right to voice a political opinion, the right to be represented, and the right to be a representative. Our leaders do not claim their authority to lead by fact of religious anointing, feudal authority, military might, aristocratic or monarchial pedigree nor, more fundamentally, by racial privilege. We the people choose our leaders as we see fit. A functional meritocracy, one that is truer to this principal, arises when insidious non-meritorious biases such as race are stripped away.
For White Americans, the victory says we can vote by the millions for a man based on his vision and his accomplishments, period. Those who are horrified or frightened to be seeing a black man in the White House, or who are inclined to believe that he is a radicalized black Muslim could benefit from looking around at their fellow citizens and asking the question, What do they see that I don't?
For Minority Americans, the victory says that there is no office or position in the land to which we cannot aspire, that the majority of our fellow Americans support us in this aspiration, and that they will now expect no less from us. This is exactly as it should be.
— R. Chaddah, New York, N.Y.
