The Strange Sensation You Feel Is He Makes Us Feel Really Proud To Be Americans

[Solomon]

There's lots of us out here, just so you know, who were born and raised pure bred American, but have never truly felt accepted as a true "American". "American" in name only because I'm born and raised here. I guess the best term for people like me and others, would be living a life of double-consciousness.

I'm sorry to have to admit this, and people can beat me up here for saying it, but I am fifty-four years old, and for the first time in my life, I finally feel that yes, yes, I am an "American." There's no more doubt. And it feels good.

Frederick Douglass made me cry the first time I read what he wrote about the Fourth of July. Rarely had anyone expressed the exact same feeling and emotion about a subject that I have always wrestled with. He expressed it so perfectly.

The best expression of the feeling and emotion that some of us are feeling right now is something that Whoopi Goldberg, of all persons, said.

She said that it feels like you can finally put your bags down. Perfectly expressed. For a lot of us, that's what it feels like.

All of my life I have envied the joy most Americans feel on the Fourth of July. I used to wonder how it feels. Wishing I could feel it too.

That's all changed now. I finally feel like I am part of the family. I am so damned proud of being an American...

Now I don't have to wonder what it feels like anymore. And it feels good. We love the ideals and rights and legal principles that are American. To see us begin to re-establish those ideals... ah, my heart is full.

"America" really is real.

Yes. I really can finally put my bags down.

[Rhiannon12866]

1. K&R. Wow. What a profound and affecting post.

Thank you for sharing your feelings with us. I am also profoundly sorry that you felt as if you never truly belonged before. A lot of us feel like that now and again, but you have good reason. I'm white and female, so can't truly understand, but know that you feel this deeply.

I grew up in a town where there were both black and white kids in my school and nobody ever pointed to me that we were at all different, not my parents, nor my teachers, nor my friends. It never dawned on me that there was any difference between any of us. Some kids were nice, some kids weren't, that's all I noticed.

But then I watched the series "Eyes on the Prize" and I was both shocked and mesmerized by it. The civil rights movement, all this pain and struggle, had taken place in my lifetime and I never really understood. Granted, I was pretty young, but I knew very little about who Martin Luther King was, except that people admired him and that he tragically died. Ever since, I've looked at things a lot differently, wondered how the kids I went to school with actually felt and why the color of someone's skin made any difference, especially over a century after the Civil War and why this superficial thing made any difference to begin with.

Everybody is a different color, nobody's actually black and nobody's actually white, so why this huge divide? I still wonder that, guess I'll never find a satisfactory answer, but I'm truly grateful, after eight long years of cringing anytime I heard "the president" mentioned, that we have a leader that we can be proud of, someone who is the right man for the right time and a person whom we can trust.

Thank you for your wonderful post and I am so glad that you can finally put your bags down. It's been way too long in coming...

Rhiannon:pals::yourock:

[Raine]

2. Two Thumbs up

GREAT post! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Peacetrain]

3. K&R

Wonderful post

[jefferson_dem]

4. So true. Thanks.

God Bless Barack Obama for Reclaiming The American Soul for "We the People"...

[firedupdem]

5. You perfectly described the feeling. Thank You n/t

[EraOfResponsibility]

6. Hear Hear n/m

[Ocracoker16]

7. being a proud American used to be an exclusive club

[CatWoman]

8. Hi Solomon

:hi:

:)

K&R!!

[Solomon]

9. Hey Cat

:loveya:

I imagine there are others who feel this way for different reasons, and some who feel they haven't gotten here yet.

[cilla4progress]

10. A new patriot

Though I am a 54 yr. old white woman, and "put my bags down" some time ago (!), I feel like a true Patriot for the first time. Sure, I was overjoyed when Clinton was elected. But not like I feel now. When Barack says "doing the work that needs to be done" BAM! I've always thought this...and thought I was way outside the mainstream.

I might actually hang out a flag on some national holiday. Wierd.

[Solomon]

11. LOL My sister has been teasing the hell out of me since

the convention in Denver. We all got a chance to go and she just couldn't get over me waving the flag all day. LOL

[SeattleGirl]

12. Great post, Solomon!

I saw The View where Whoopi made that remark about finally being able to put her bags down, and I thought she was absolutely spot on.

[Hepburn]

13. Amen!

And after the prior 8 years ~~ what a welcome trend!!!! :hi:

[Solomon]

14. I think all of us got a taste of what it feels like after the past

8 years. Well, really more than that. Since Reagan overall, then Bush 1, and the way they hounded Clinton, and then it became truly un-american-like during Bush 2. A sense of estrangement. It feels good to bring the ship back around in the right direction.

[juno jones]

25. Funny you should say that.

The last time I felt this sense of American wholeness was around the time of the bicentennial in '76'.

It was a different country by the mid eighties and one I have felt exiled from since. I'm only starting to become accustomed to being an american again. I think many of us are.

[Historic NY]

15. Thats interesting I had a semi-Repuke make an observation that..

things seemed different in America. She thought or was told African-Americans would be rioting in the street. She was surprised that most now seemed....& I said like they belonged. thats exactly it she said. It was not what she expected. I told her it was a complete shift in the paradigm of America. Change has come for the good, she agreed.

[Solomon]

18. Yep Yep that's it. I finally feel like I belong here.

And somebody else upthread said it too, the feeling that America is living up to it's promise again. A real patriotism and not the fake patriotism that the right wing foists on the nation.

[mwb970]

24. The Freepers now predict rioting in "six months".

That's when they feel that Americans will "wake up" and discover that they have elected a radical communist dictator who is going to import a personal army from Gaza and subjugate the states one by one. Once his evil plan becomes clear, that's when the rioting will start.

(I am not making this up. Just go to FR and read the Obama Derangement Syndrome threads. They are amazing!)

[AyanEva]

16. so true

[CitizenPatriot]

17. LOVE your post

I finally feel like America is living up to her promise. I am proud. I can't wait to travel overseas and proudly show my passport! Yes, we have That One as our President!!!!!

I'm getting a flag ASAP.

I can live here now -- have always been dreaming of moving to another country. I wouldn't leave while I had Obama as my president!!! We are leading the world....in ideas:-)

Take Care...and unpack. You're gonna be here for a while:-)

[asteroid2003QQ47]

19. Not so fast Solomon et al,

there is one small problem...

[Solomon]

20. Why don't you try and explain whatever point you think you

are making? I guarantee you that you will fail in raining on the parade.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

21. "I guarantee you that you will fail in raining on the parade."-Solomon

And I guarantee you that you are right. That is tragic!

[H2O Man]

23. No dam built today

can hold back waters that flowed in the past. Among the many marginalized peoples in the USA are, of course, traditional Native Americans. Yet the point of the OP is right on target -- many, many traditional people are among those who believe that President Obama not only knows about their problems, but actually cares enough to do something to make positive changes today.

[Solomon]

26. Thank-you. As I said earlier, there are some of us who haven't

made it yet as far as feeling how I feel. And there are others for feel the same way for different reasons.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

28. Your callous use of the term "Native Americans bespeaks volumes, H2O Man.

Ironically, the term "Native American" is not only just as wrong as "American Indian", but it is wrong in the same way; while the latter term implies that the people descended from the original population of the Americas were born elsewhere, the former term implies that they are the only inhabitants who were not.

http://www.answers.com/topic/misnomer

[H2O Man]

29. twerp

[asteroid2003QQ47]

31. "TWERP"- A person regarded as insignificant and contemptible.

http://www.answers.com/topic/twerp

You're on a roll, kid, keep it coming.

[damonm]

34. There's also this, from the same source:

"An insignificant but arrogant and obnoxious young person"

And you have yet to make or defend your point clearly, so you do seem to be heading in the above direction...

[asteroid2003QQ47]

38. Projection, damonm? Born in '42 would seem to exempt me...

from your attack. Your birth year?

[damonm]

39. Ah, irrelevance...

Asking me for my birth year (which I could make up just as easily, BTW, but won't - 1961).
So you're not young - which means you have less excuse.
And until you clearly make and/or defend your initial point (neither of which you've done yet), you're qualifying on the other 2 points. All you've done is argue about semantics.
Simple to change - just explain WTH you were talking about with your post (#19, for reference), and the "twerp" complaint goes away.
It may be replaced with something else, but I can offer no guarantees. :)

[trayfoot]

22. I know wxactly how you feel!

[opihimoimoi]

27. Obama is one of those really RARE Leaders who are ALTRUISTIC

He thinks and acts for the rest of us....he has read history and knows the art of LEADERSHIP

[damonm]

33. No such thing...

as Altruistic, which by definition means doing good with no thought of reward.
He knows if he does this right, his reward will be to go down in history with the likes of Lincoln and FDR - pretty heady company for a man with his historical awareness.

But otherwise, I couldn't agree more - he knows how to lead, he knows how to govern, and he knows how to communicate what he knows.

He must have been a SUPERB teacher - I wouldn't mind taking a Constitutional Law class w/ him teaching it.

[opihimoimoi]

37. How bout BENEVOLENT...? would that work??? LOL

I been around since Kennedys days,,,

Obama has the GIFT, the Acumen to inspire like no other...esp in these dire times...

[damonm]

40. There you go...

[pink-o]

30. God, it's like you read my mind, Solomon!

Listening to Obama's speech to the joint congress just made my heart swell with patriotic pride. I could barely believe it. I too am 54, so you and I saw Kennedy killed as little children, and all through my life it felt like the promise died with him. Now, 45 years later, after Nixon, Reagan, Bushes I and II--and a small reprieve with Clinton and Carter who were both sabotaged by the RW--I finally feel like the promise can be fulfilled.

I've hated the jingoism that's passed for national pride, the fearmongering, the turning everyone with dark skin into "the enemy". But Barack Obama is the opposite of fearmongering--when he speaks of loving this country and the backbone of America being its working people, you know he means it, you know he's been there, you know he understands the burdens of his office but also realises this is his chance to bring the promise to fruition.

I'm Jewish and female, but I feel that President Obama speaks to me. I won't always agree with him, but I'm confident he will always listen to people like me and weigh what we say with gravitas and sincerity.

I never thought I'd see the day when this would happen again. The last time, I was 8 years old!

[noiretextatique]

32. your post really hits home for me

i feel exactly the same way. ronald reagan was the first president of my young adulthood. i am so thankful that my nieces will join the workforce with obama in the white house.

[BklynChick]

35. yes, exactly!

[Captain Hilts]

36. I've always felt that way. 'America' will be truly real...

when women are trusted in leadership positions.

We're not all the way there yet my friend.