Barack Obama Has Already Accomplished What He Most Needed To Do: Unite the majority of Americans, across lines that traditionally divided them, towards the fulfillment of a common purpose. Now the citizenry, "We the People," must refine that purpose into a clear blueprint, distill it into achievable goals, and commit to their fulfillment. Goal Number One should be a congratulatory examination of what "We the People" have matured into.America's Maturation: Race and the Obama Presidency President Obama raised the bar for all Americans and his victory quashes the notion that race is a lock, or a key, to success. Because humans excel at inventing reasons to discriminate against or hate each other, prejudice will exist forever. If not focused on one's appearance, it will center on something else. Fortunately, stupidity and unfairness are easily outsmarted, and outmaneuvered, so nothing can stop an individual's progress except the individual himself.
President Obama's success will inspire and motivate individual black Americans, but not validate them. Another person's victory cannot be consigned to oneself, and taking personal credit for the successes of your ethnic group is fraudulent, unless you also take personal credit for your group's failures (and assume responsibility for correcting them).
The Civil Rights Act gave black Americans full legal rights as citizens in 1964. The "It's Up to You Now" memo, explaining that economic self-empowerment is the only way to enforce and protect those rights, was, unfortunately, never distributed. As a result, black Americans did not fully engage the clutch of advancement, despite the engine of progress running at full speed, a limitless fuel supply, and a wide- open road of opportunity. Instead, the weight and inertia of the legacies of discrimination and slavery caused them to figuratively sit in neutral:
"I see the accelerator and the shifter, and could use the steering wheel to circumvent obstacles, but if I do that someone or something will probably just stop me so I'll play it safe and stay here, or follow other people who look like they might know where they are going, or perhaps wait for someone to come and drive for me."
That sort of thing.
To accelerate forward as a nation, ideas of reparation, and feelings of white guilt, must be abandoned partly because they impede progress, but mostly because
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