It was midnight. Election night had been a blur of screaming, cheering, crying hugs and high-fives with friends and strangers, from The Stranger's party at the Showbox to an Australian-themed pub in Greenlake (when the showbox reached capacity and our whole group couldn't get in.) We'd toasted so much that, at one point, a glass shattered, showering the table with beer and broken glass. We'd screamed ourselves hoarse. I hadn't slept with anxiety the night before, and I had to be at work in 6 hours. We were all ready for sleep.
The message came just before the lights went out:
There's something going on in Red Square...
I began the night at the Showbox, and my first "Oh My God" moment came courtesy of CNN's resident windbag, Bill Bennett. The quote that really had be choking with disbelief was this one:
Anderson Cooper: I mean, if he does become president, and it still is an if, does anyone know what this means in terms of change of race relations in the United States, or perception of?
Bennett: Well, I'll tell you one thing it means, as a former Secretary of Education: You don't take any excuses anymore from anybody who says, 'The deck is stacked, I can't do anything, there's so much in-built this and that.' There are always problems in a big society. But we have just -- if this turns out to be the case, President Obama -- we have just achieved an incredible milestone. For which the rest of the world needs to have more respect for the United States than it sometimes does. Source
Apparently electing a black president means racism is over. Not just over from now on, but all past racism, personal or institutional, no longer acceptable justifications for not measuring up to Bill Bennett's standards. (By the way, what does he mean with the "As a former Secretary of Education..."? Does that position make him an expert on such things? Is he meaning this to only apply to educational situations? SERIOUSLY WHO PAYS THIS GUY FOR HIS OPINION?)
Anyway, I'd been up all night, purging my pre-election nerves by doing laundry, much to the chagrin of my house mates, who found my insomnia to be a bit catching. I made it to my morning classes, spent an hour phonebanking Montana, and as soon as Ohio was called, I felt just a little more relaxed than I can remember feeling in the last year. So Bill Bennett wasn't getting me down. Even my ex, who was supposed to be watching the results with us and who was pointedly not answering his phone, (the sort of thing that's been known to have me in tears) wasn't even registering on my radar. I'm sure most of you reading know exactly the feeling I'm trying to describe. It was like my face couldn't smile hard enough.
So by the time midnight came around and my friends and I were settling in for a well-earned victory sleep, I was checking Kos for the down ticket races I'd been unable to follow after my laptop battery died (right about the time Ohio was called) One of my friends got the message about Red Square, (which, for non-Seattlites, is the center of the University of Washington campus,) and we decided our joy was not going to bed just yet.
We met up with the crowd of easily 1,000 as they were walking across the University bridge towards capitol hill. We were cheering, chanting, horns were honking, an actual marching band was playing, people were rushing out of their houses to wave and cheer. Even the Bus drivers who couldn't get through the mob to continue on their routes were surprisingly content to follow us slowly through the streets. The walking part of the party ended 4 miles later at Broadway and Pike, where people danced, climbed street lights and generally cheered. People yelled "we took our country back tonight!" we chanted "Yes we can!" I heard people attribute every action as "for Obama" (Ex. We're running for Obama! We're stopping for water, for Obama! We're peeing in bushes, for Obama!) Afterwards, we slowly made the 4 mile walk back to our car (at about 2am) and still greeted strangers with "OBAMA!" and got cheers and high-fives in response.
I've been part of protests, I've demonstrated for or against causes, but this was nothing like that at all. This was thousands of people all sharing the same overwhelming joy and walking, almost aimlessly, just to share that joy with as many others as they could. It was an amazing thing to be a part of, not because we did anything, but because it is an experience I will likely never have a chance to replicate.
After 9-11, in that surge of fear and anger-based patriotism, I thought that was the last time so many of us would feel so strongly about America. I was so wrong.
Oh, and my ex? Didn't even vote. I guess I've been wrong about a lot of things.