When Mowgli was a baby, our pediatrician was a woman. When he was about 4, I took him to a different doctor and used the word "he" to prepare him for the appointment. He rolled his eyes and said, "Mommy! BOYS can't be doctors!"
It occurs to me that a very young child today could go through his whole childhood while Obama is still president. Will he wonder what all the fuss was about? Will he just take it for granted that presidents can be black? Will it seem strange to him if Obama's successor is white? Just thinking . . .
3 comments:
I’m excited that my kids will grow up in a country where a black man can be, and has been, president. Ann and I were talking about how meaningful it’ll be to the world that, every time you turn on the news and they talk about the First Family, it’ll be a young black couple and their two small children. It’ll be interesting to see how this will affect race in politics in 20 years – was this just a glitch? After the Obama administration is over in four or eight years, will we go back to the status quo of only electing old white guys?
I think we will elect a woman soon and then I think--I hope--some of those things will become less relevant. Maybe our future presidents will be as varied as Americans are!
Look at how many mayors of major US cities are not old white guys. Nobody even notices any more. I hear there's even a woman State Governor. There used to be one around here some place too.
It's about time we got around to the Presidency. Now maybe we can get back to figuring out whether on not the President has what it takes to actually govern!
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