I'm reading a lot today about how African Americans are moved to tears by seeing Barack Obama named America's first black president. (OK, major party nominee, but it's matter of time.)
It's more than justified. Particularly on this anniversary of MLK's 'dream' speech.
But I was moved as well because this is an amazing moment for all Americans, for all democrats, and for the world.
It's also an amazing moment for Generation X, so let me stake out that position.
You see, Barack and I are the same age. And we're right there with Douglas Coupland, who wrote the book 'Generation X.' Before the marketers got ahold of it, it was a name for those of us who grew up at the tail end of the Baby Boom, rather than about the Boomer's kids.
Call us what you will, but as boomers, many of us feel left out. Too young to go to Woodstock (though that also meant we were too young to be drafted into Vietnam, thank god.) Too young for Studio 54 in the 1970s, and too young to conspicuously consumer.
Too young to abandon JFK's 'ask what you can do for your country' for Reagan's 'screw the country and the debt, just give me my damn money.'
I was reading in Newsweek that Obama tends to dismiss the 1960s and the Boom; if it's true, this might be why. I think of the Baby Boom as the most self-absorbed generation in history, and both Boomer presidents have demonstrated it. Bill Clinton risked what could have been a great legacy for a little play; GW has always seemed more interested in mountain biking, exercise and funny nicknames than being president.
But I think it's more that Obama is concerned about the future. I often wonder if he, like so many of us as kids around the world, watched as astronauts first walked on the moon and wondered about the possibilities. He perhaps never visited Tomorrowland or saw GE's World of Tomorrow, which facinated me as a So Cal kid. But I'm sure he's seen '2001.'
And that was the future we were raised on. Solving problems here on earth, living in a clean, bright future, and reaching out to the stars.
It hit home for me in the year 2000. Turn of the century. But what the hell happened to the future? Did the world fail? Or did someone hijack it?
I mean, we have bridges falling on people. Cities falling under water. A third of our taxes go not to build anything, but to service debt. What happened to the future?
So I can't really express how proud I am to see someone my age step up and try to take it back. Particularly when the other side is basically saying, he can't do it, no one can.
This is a man, after all, who rose from almost nothing to succeed by working his butt off. Went to Harvard. (I didn't. Not because someone stole it from me, as republicans tell me, but because I lacked the money to send myself and didn't work hard enough to earn a scholarship.)
Obama succeeded there as well anyone could. Chose community work over Wall Street or a top law firm. Went to Washington. Did more in two years than many senators do in a career. And did it in the face of prejudices I'll never face.
How could anyone not want their son or daughter would follow a similar course, earning success through hard work?
Mind you, I have no complaints. Thanks to a great state college system, I earned a degree without falling deeply into debt. I can send my daughter to college. I'm well employed in a job not easily outsourced.
But this isn't the future I signed up for. Yes, republicans, I should be thankful I'm not hanging by the wrists in a prison camp, and I am. But I'm also audacious enough to believe in tomorrow.
To me, Obama means we can set our course once again for that future we grew up believing in. Which I suppose isn't just a Gen X thing. It's a human thing.