Tommorrow Is Our Turn

We live in a well sharpened world of hardened hearts and demanded cynicism. Some days, It's difficult to find a single rounded edge, and we make ourselves as cold and hard as the world around us, implicitly accepting that when we ricochet off the sides of life it's better to be chiped than impaled. Multiply these days by your life, and Martin Luther King's birthday, which we celebrated yesterday, symbolizes little and is thought about even less.

However, if you were looking closely at the news of our nation yesterday you were heartened by signs of its people stretching their collective consciensce and grasping at the dream Dr.King once described to our nation from the steps of the Lincoln memorial over 40 years ago.

The most obvious example was the Democratic debate for the Nevada Primary that aired on televison. Vying for that party's nomination for president of our country is a black man, a white woman, and a white man from a blue-collar, lower middle-class background. Regardless of who you may support, you can't look at that impressive group of people and not feel a sense of pride in our collective psychic maturation, and that something great is happening in our country.

However, the greatest sign of the realized dream wasn't tied to the question of Hillary vs. Barack. While it recieved only a small amount of news coverage, that special moment happened in my home state of Louisiana.

In Louisiana, racism pervades everything. There is little trust between blacks and whites, and political firestorms are ever present. Perhaps you've heard of a place called Jena. Well, that's just scratching the surface. For example, in 1991 Louisiana nearly elected David Duke as Governor of the state, a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He recieved 55% of the white vote.

Yesterday, less than 20 years since that vote, Louisiana has elected a new governor. His name is Piyush "Bobby" Jindal. He and his wife are Indians (dot, not feather). Bobby, the son of an immigrant, was born in India and was a believer in the hindu faith until converting to catholicism as a teenager. He is 36 years old, the youngest governor in the country.

Jindal is a staunch conservative, and I disagree with him heavily on the issues, but as someone who lived 23 years as a gay man in mostly poor, mostly black rural South Louisiana communities broken by a history of hatred, pictures like the one above, where he, joined by his family, is warmly recieved and inagurated as leader, make me believe, and give me hope.

If America can elect Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, and Louisiana can elect Bobby Jindal, we must dare to ask what gay or lesbian among us will be bold enough, strong enough, brave enough, and inherently good enough, to be the first homosexual Senator, Governor, or even President. 20 years ago none of these people were concievable in their current position to change history and shift our collective mind forward. Think about that.

The dream is for us as well. Tommorrow is our turn.