ON KINDLY UNCLES AND SHATTERED GLASS CEILINGS
OK, I’ll admit it. Biden wasn’t my first choice. And yet I have spent the last 24 hours awash with joy and relief. Here’s the thing. I have come to believe that Joe Biden is just the kindly uncle we need right now. Sure, he knows his way around the White House and has lots of experience working across the aisle and, sure, he will work on the issues that matter to me — addressing climate change, making sure the American dream is available to those who have been left out and left behind, getting everyone health care, conquering the virus. But really the best thing about him just might be his avuncular manner.
Yes, that comes with telling long-winded stories about his youth and, well, being old. But, so what? He isn’t unhinged. He won’t be throwing tantrums in the White House. He won’t be calling women pigs. He won’t be calling Mexicans rapists. He won’t be whining and poor-me-ing when he doesn’t get his way.
We all have a crazy uncle or grandfather or friend. The one who comes to Thanksgiving dinner and won’t shut up about every divisive or embarrassing topic he can come up with. Or the one that comes to the White House and stays for four years.
We have traded in that crazy uncle for a sane one, one who will at least try to calm things down and bring us together. And that would be enough for me today.
But there’s more. He has invited a woman, a Black and Asian woman, for Thanksgiving dinner. And to the White House.
People — I am a nearly-71-year-old woman who did not think she would live to see this day. Women’s suffrage was not quite 30-years-old the year I was born. The idea of a woman in the White House was not even on my radar during my childhood. Men were Presidents. Women were homemakers.
It took second-wave feminism to make the idea seem plausible, although it soon became clear that there would be many obstacles thrown in the path of female candidates. I watched Shirley Chisholm run in 1970 and cheered for Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. But, after Hillary’s defeat in 2016, and listening to Trump and Pence express their troglodyte views of women in front of cheering crowds, I figured we wouldn’t be seeing a woman in the White House any time soon.
So, today, I celebrate not just the repudiation of mean-spiritedness and purposeful divisiveness, I celebrate the first female Vice President. The first woman of color to serve in that role.
Last night, I had tears in eyes as I listened to Kamala Harris. Women my age have waited a very long time for this day. Today, my daughters and granddaughters have a role model. And little black and brown girls can look at the White House and see someone who looks like them.
The 1950s called and we said, uh uh, we aren’t going back.
So, tomorrow we can resume the hard work of making this an America for all Americans. Today, let’s pause to rejoice.
Gif by Kaho Yoshida
Originally published at https://woacanotes.blogspot.com.