Hundreds of thousands of people will converge Tuesday on the nation’s capital. They will come to celebrate not just the election of the country’s first African-American president, but also to bear witness that the United States has overcome its ugly racial past. It’s embarking on a new era.
In 1968, my high school class chose “The Impossible Dream” as its song. Most of us believed we would never see a black man attain the highest political office in the country. No doubt President Barack Obama will speak of this monumental change during his inaugural address.
“Change” has become the word du jour. It screams from newspapers and billboards. One D.C. neighborhood declares itself the destination for change.
Are we ready for change?
The inaugural activities — swearing-in and parade — are steeped in tradition. Presidents, preachers, paraders and poets may change, but the ritual remains the same.
Change would be ditching those fancy, expensive balls and sending the money to local charities, like Central Kitchen. It certainly would be passage of that $850 billion federal stimulus package without any special-interest earmarks but with a focus on the needs of all folks on America’s main streets. Democrats and Republicans, in the process, would narrow the aisle between them, working more on behalf of citizens than the longevity of their political parties.
Welcomed change would be DC Vote and other advocates not acting like graffiti artists, plastering everything in sight — buildings, street signs and license plates — with the slogan “Taxation Without Representation,” and choosing instead to storm the Capitol, demanding what they have been denied. Those “Yes We Can” red and white posters all over town just aren’t getting it. If we can, why haven’t we?
In a changed world, bureaucrats would implement laws as they were intended and then enforce them; when a child gets in trouble with the law, parents would take responsibility instead of blaming the government for not having enough recreation programs or not giving a summer job to every teen or not having music classes or whatever; residents, who construct those makeshift memorials of flowers, toys and other paraphernalia, would demonstrate concern before a tragedy occurs — not after.
On the light side, change would mean Obama could take his wife, Michelle, on a Friday date without a phalanx of men wearing dark suits and earplugs. D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty would order a root beer soda with that turkey dog at Ben’s Chili Bowl. The D.C. Council would start its legislative sessions on time; and every escalator at Metro would work properly — every day.
Most important, Americans — after putting away those gowns and tuxedos or turning off their television sets — would not retreat to the sidelines to whine about what their government is or isn’t doing. They’d remember that, in fact, they are the government. And, they’d ensure that change actually does arrive — razor sharp.
