Thank You, America

[stuveltje]

thats a great post,
i am realy meaning that, btw i didnt know the racist thing was that bad in usa, here in holland, we have marocs and turkish in our goverments, am i a racist, probably because i nag about every person who wont go with the dutch rules and dont wanna work, i also mean the dutchies, i grew up with the words heay dont come home with a colored guy.....then when i got the age of 15 i saw my dad dealed with colored guys so i asked, why you tell me not to go with colored guys while you hang out with them? he said i dont mind if the guy is colored or white, but i do care the guy has respect and want to work and has a job, now with that i agree, i tell my daughter dont come home with some not working or not speaking dutch guy....am i a racist...yes you can say i am, but with my saying i also mean dutchies, my daughter dont have to come home with a white or colored guy with no fucking job and all or dont speak dutch (believe me even the white people speak a certain dialect because they grow up in a country with different speaking language people it will be a mix of dutch turkish or dutch marocs), i dont buy that, if the guya has a job and speak the dutch lanuage i dont have a problem with it, no matter what color, still we in holland deal better with colored people then usa, they have the same rights, thats why i didnt understand why all got happy because usa has a black president...wouldnt bin any difference here( we have colored people in our goverment who rule this country), they all have the same rights, but after reading the postings in this thread i do understand better the usa thing. And Cleo here they say gays are accepted, but the news show that gays are still different, it sucks,we have the law but still people get hit because they are gay, some famouse guy here who is gay, has a gay model friend, the gay model friend lost his contract as a model with some company because he is fucking gay, thats insane even in holland, because here the law say "gays are accepted and you know all gays even can get married here"....the difference will be always around

Ps and our goverment is thinking of to close all the coffee shops down, means for all foreign people, no drugs in holland to get at all

[RedCherry]

Great post UW!

I had a father who was racist, although he was very careful not to show it to us kids, and I appreciated that. I grew up in a small town that was mostly white, although on my block we had quite a cosmopolitan mix for a 1 block dead end street, and had 4 different nationalities represented.

And I'd tell you the races, but I spelled them so bad, even spellcheck couldn't figure out what I was saying, lol.

At 18, I moved to Hawaii, and got to experience racism aimed at me first hand. My skin was too light, and I couldn't speak Japanese. There were restaurants that took their time waiting on me, jobs that although it wasn't said "you have to be Asian to get this job" there was still no way I'd get it.

Yet I saw the opposite too. I saw people embrace me like family and welcome me in too and show me the true "aloha" spirit.

18 years of experiencing that to a varying degrees made me really appreciate what it is like to be a minority. I graduated from the University of Hawaii, and I had many a class where I was the only white person, and sometimes the only woman and only white person, in the class.

So Obama being elected meant a lot to me too. See it isn't always "people of color" that are discriminated against, or in the minority. He bridges a big gap. I saw people standing in that crowd when he said his acceptance speech. Black, white, brown all together, smiling, laughing crying together. That really really touched me. I was proud of our country that we could get to that point. Like you, I keep thinking about it.

And the fact that we are almost the same age (He is 15 days older I think) it made me feel like we are FINALLY passing the torch on to my generation and younger. Its time the old farts that have been running washington retired, and let the younger generation take over.

And when last night, seeing him stand up with a TEAM of experts and talk about the economy. Not just "oh I know everything I'm the president" type of leadership we have had for 8 years, that made me so proud. Here is a man that is a true leader. He is still going to have a TEAM obama.

Like you, I could go on and on. I have watched this election more thant I ever have in my life up to this point. I felt like this was the most important one, if he didn't make it, I'd move out of the country important.

Anyways I'm really tired, and out of words.