Sara M. Medina-Ramos

The Election for Change



Posted: Tuesday, November 04, 2008

by
aftherthougts

I was ten years old, sitting at my desk in my six grade class when our teacher broke the news of John F. Kennedy 's assassination. Although we were a class of ten and eleven years olds, silence echoed, heads bowed and we all knew what a historic event we were living and witnessing.

Five years later, when I was fifteen years old, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. As a young teen, I had watched and listened intensely to his march on Washington and to his "I had a dream" speech at the footsteps of the Lincoln Memorial. I watched as a youngster the apathy that our legislative and judicial branches demonstrated in their lack to deter and punish outright criminal injustices occurring during the civil rights movement.

When I attended college in my twenties, I began to question the constitutionality of our own constitution that would allow such atrocities in our history to occur in the first place. The massacre of the Indian Nation, the slavery, lynching and economic suppression of our black citizens made the Preamble we studied in history class and government classes seem a farce lie.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility , provide for the common defense , promote the general Welfare , and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity , do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I thought it left out the words "white people" at the end"establish this Constitution of the United States of America" for white people. I was thinking that to be "red, brown, black or Asian was not to have justice, domestic tranquility, general welfare, liberty or posterity...or citizenship as white people did. Is this racistno it's not.

This is the thought of all those of us "non-white" skin that have been indirectly influenced by the lack of our government to look out for our welfare which historically led to our inactions and non involvement in the political process for a long time.

Timesthey have been changing. Maybe it has been these last eight years of a government administration that forgot that its people are the ones with the power to change and undo their mistakes...no matter their skin color, their religious affiliation or their education.

I have always been an advocate to my friends and family on the importance of votingof the sacrifices of those that died to give us that right, especially those that died to give us our civil liberties; our first class instead of second class citizenship in our own country. This election is not about race, though it may seem like it. It is about change. This election is about continuing the mindset of Martin Luther King , John F. Kennedy , Gandhi , Dalai Lamait's about a new beginning that focuses on extending a hand rather than a pointed rifle.

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