Hey there Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhoda Island...we are waiting for your votes, for your voice, for your energy to get us closer to choosing Barack Obama for our Democratic Nominee. Please vote for Barack Obama today.
Our hearts have been broken so many times during the last 7 years as the Republican party has used fear, divisiveness and prejudice to tear this country apart. We love this diverse country, this land of the free. This election is about reclaiming our very soul/identity as a nation.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Our hearts were broken.
The Federal response to Katrina broke the heart of every kind-hearted, ethical person in this country. Those long five days after the storm, as New Orleans filled with water, as people drowned in their attics, as people waited on their rooftops, as people gathered in "shelters" without food, water or safety began a crucial turning point in American history.
It became shockingly evident that all Americans are not treated equally, not valued in the same way. We witnessed it on TV for five long days. We saw babies die from heat exhaustion, bodies covered on the streets or floating face down in the water and hardened reporters dissolve in tears. Our government turned a blind eye to human need and used an excuse of "danger" as to why people were not allowed in to help. We later listened to Barbara Bush tell reporters that things were "working out well" for hurricane survivors who had lost their homes and jobs to the hurricane simply because they were sleeping on a cot in a shelter in Texas. There was no way to deny that institutional racism was the undercurrent in the most failed response to a natural disaster in our nation’s history.
And something began to change.
New Orleans, we saw you. We DID see ourselves in you and we saw our American family mistreated. And we are angry about how you were treated, and about how your city remains wounded and not restored. This is not how America treats its own people. Our hearts were broken.
We have begun to push back and fight for the very character of this country. Racism in the individual is despicable, but racism in an institution is both dangerous and intolerable.
We will no longer tolerate racism in our elected officials, politicians or political parties.
We must begin a new chapter in America. We must move forward.
It is time.
There are many reasons why I voted for Obama this month.
But one of those reasons is very personal and it has to do with the possibility of healing and a hope for a better America.
Un-break my heart.
Vote Obama.