What I Hope Americans Hear In Obama's Speech Today...Yes We Can!
As I got older I began to see the manifestation in her prophecy as I has friends from every corner of the globe, like Obama. I was always accepted easily but often mistaken for many different global ethnicities and welcomed in the home of my international friends because there was always something familiar about my face to them - something that reminded them of themselves - something from "home." I was often called "the international face."
When it was time for me to go to college, I too, like Obama paid my own way...and had to pave my own way. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth...I was poor and had to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I worked my way through New York University while working a full time time job as a medical technician in one of the world's most famous and reknown NY research hospitals with some of the most presigious and influential medical minds working through school and hoping to join the ranks with them as a physician. I had high hopes to become a physician, but a long, hard, lonely uphill climb to get there, like Obama in his journey to become a lawyer.
I did well when no one thought I would. I was a 4.0 student who got accepted to Columbia University also, like Obama, solely on my own merit after being told 10 years prior that, "I wasn't even NYU material."
I, like Obama looked to define myself through those tough years. I looked to see where that silver lining was my mother spoke of when discrimination would take a back seat, and I could boldly take my seat as a proud American who was no longer seen and judged by my color and sadly at that time I still couldn't find it - until now!
I was never raised with strict religious views, but my mother always raised me to know who Christ was and that he represented unconditional love. But as I entered into my life, I too, looked for this unconditional love from others in the world and was sadly disappointed most times. But, when my mother took ill and couldn't care for me for a short time I finally found that unconditional love in the most unsuspecting place.
I too, like Obama was raised for a short time in my life by someone other than my mother. That person who stepped in for me was a "closet" homosexual man - who was not blood related to me and who later died in 1993 of AIDS, but who saw a woman who was alone in a big city and didn't have any family and needed a helping hand with her two small bi-racial children.
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