America has voted for change.

I was actually moved to tears by Obama's speech presence last night. I've never been one to feel passionate about politics, so this kind of shocked me. I think what really got to me was watching this whole thing with my dad. For most of the night, he kept saying rhetorically, "Can you believe it? Can you believe it!?!?!" And when Obama came onto the stage, the look on my dad's face was priceless/unforgettable/ingrained in my memory forever.

I don't really care much for the concept of race, however tonight, I feel particularly inclined to discuss it. I'll be honest with you, I hate the concept of race. I don't hate very many things, so this is a big deal. For years its been a word that I've always attached negative associations with. Why does it matter that your skin is black/white/yellow/red/brown/etc.? Why does it matter that you and a whole other bunch of people are different from others based on common, genetically linked, physical characteristics?? Didn't we all come from the same ancestor anyway?
Well, yes, yes we did.

But even though we are the same species, and we all came from one common ancestor, the fact that a (half-)black man was elected president of the United States is still BIG news. I guess for me, its not that big of a deal. I got over the concept of race being a dividing factor practically at birth when I probabaly looked up at my parents, saw that they weren't the same colour, and thought that that was normal. To my dad, however, as I learned from his reaction tonight, it is a big deal. Which is why I cried.

As some of you know, my parents' families didn't agree to the union between my mom and dad because my dad is black and my mom is asian. And to be honest with you, I sometimes get the hint that they don't still agree with it. Even after all of these years. (And this really hurts me, seeing as how I'm the product of said union.)

And as some of you may not know, my dad used to be a pharmacist back in Trinidad. When he immigrated to Canada, he went into a pharmacy to try to get an apprenticeship with the pharmacist while he went to school. The white man looked at my dad's black skin and said that he'd never be a pharmacist and that he couldn't give him a job. And with that, my dad became a chef.

If my dad had the example of a black US president back then, I think that things may have turned out differently for him. And that's why Obama in the White House is such a good thing. For all those kids out there who think the odds are against them, they now have the perfect role model.

And with this, I leave you with a cute quote by (apparently) Jay-Z:
"Rosa Parks sat so that Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked, so that Obama could run. Obama is running so that we all can fly."