Yes, We Will

We live in incredible times.

Outside, the streets are exploding with euphoria as people stream out into the crisp night after seeing CNN's projection that the victory in this election will go to Barack Obama. Cars honk their horns in joyous rhythms, pedestrians trawl the streets with endless cheers and whoops. The security guard to my dorm couldn't help sharing her enthusiasm. Now and then, choruses of "Yes, we can" erupt across the campus. In nearby Harlem, a midnight party is in full swing, and its cries and calls echo across Manhattan - indeed, across the whole Union.

I was involved in the electio-day poll site survey today, and K and I made our way into Brooklyn to observe our poll site. The people there, the staff as well as the voters, were in high spirits, happily working together to facilitate the voting process, happy and eager to cast their votes. Everyone we talked to reflected their satisfaction with the process, and a few also remarked on the good spirits that everyone was in on this election day. It is such that people feel part of something bigger. Especially first-time voters - they exhibited an especial earnestness.

(Outside, somewhere on campus, cheers of "Obama, Obama" echo out into the night...)

We spoke for a while with the poll site manager, and he shared about how he keeps volunteering to do election work, because it is so worthwhile to help people to exercise their right to vote. He spoke of residents in the neighbourhood who would recognise him on the streets after election day, and thank him for a good election experience. He reminisced about helping first-time voters, explaining the vote-casting process and seeing them overcome their initial fears and uncertainties and emerge from the polling booth awash in new empowerment. And this year, especially, it was all the more important to put in the effort to help everyone to vote.

(A cheer goes up right in front of my building...)

After that, we made our way down to Times Square. It was already full of people, becauce ABC and CNN had each claimed an end of the Square and set up live broadcasts of programmes following the election results. We joined the CNN broadcast, joining the great crowd of people in front of that great screen, and, through CNN's periodic pans of crowds at Times Square, in Grant Park (Chicago), LA, and even Kenya, we joined a great globe-girdling network of supporters and watchers. And as polls closed in each state and results came in, and as Obama's tally of electoral college votes rose inexorably, the crowd's excitement grew palpably more intense.

(Some people start singing somewhere, the words washed out by the distance, with only the tune carrying on the wind...)

And then, when the polls closed on the West Coast, CNN made their historic announcement. And the crowd went wild.

This is the moment, then, that "Yes, we can" became "Yes, we did", when hopes raised at the end of last year came to fruition, when a promise made when Obama became the Democratic nominee was reaffirmed by popular support. And for myself, this was the culmination of a process that started a year ago, when Obama first appeared on CNN, BBC and TIME Magazine and started to fascinate me, and then passed through my teaching stint in CHS, when Barack Obama repeatedly appeared in chats (and a speech of his appeared as one of my lessons' material). And then it passed by the ServiceNation debate this year on 9/11, and then came up again through the last few frenetic days of campaigning (especially in Philadelphia), late-night comedy's commentaries on the political process, and finally, today's poll site survey. The chance to see this phenomenon growing, gathering steam, and finally coming to fruition here - in person - is unparalleled. It is unbelievable.

And to see all these people on the streets so caught up in euphoria - I have never seen anything quite like it, this utter abandon in joy, without a hint of ironic self-consciousness. People are simply happy, and want to share that happiness with others. The people standing in Times Square watching the live feed shared a sort of camaraderie in the commonality of their location; people were politer, more accommodating, more indulging of one another. And I remember especially standing at a junction in Times Square when the live feed cut to a picture of a black man crying in a church somewhere. I asked K, "Is that Jeremiah Wright?" A nearby man interjected, "No, that's Jesse Jackson. He ran for President too a few years back." And as this man watched Jesse Jackson weeping on the screen, his own face was also glowing with happiness. Happiness and pride, pride at having been part of this incredible event.

Obama has surely done something special here. He has unleashed a great wave of hope in this country, made people aware of the gap between where they stand and where they can be, and galvanised them to bridge that gap. And he has unleashed this wave across all sorts of categorical barriers, so that people share the same hope regardless of race, gender, age, class. Just looking at the faces of the crowd at Times Square, one is struck immediately by its sheer diversity - and the sheer harmony it contained. Not since 9/11 has there been such a groundswell of collective will. People believe in the vision that Obama has offered as a prospective future; more importantly, they believe that they can - and must - achieve that vision. Here, then, on this night in November, there is a keen sense that the whole country stands upon the brink of a historic change, a change in direction that is fuelled by an inclusive consensus. On this night, then, "Yes, we can" becomes "Yes, we will".

And as for me - I stand here, in awe at finding myself amidst all this. I struggle to take all of this in, and to grasp how a series of ridiculously fortuitous accidents has put me in this time and place, where things happen. And I look at these things happening, and I find myself looking forward, towards what the future may hold, towards what will happen next.