Not only have the lives  of too many of our foremothers been left out of our history texts and our collective consciousness, there are deliberate attempts to alter the curriculum for K-12 public schools that will obliterate their contributions and sacrifices. Not only will these changes make the curriculum andocentric, it will “whitewash” it.

Thanks to Betty Brink at the newly launched Ms. Magazine blog for her post “Texas Whitewashes U.S. History.”

As for women, their historical roles have pretty much been relegated to the June Cleaver stay-at-home-mom model of the 1950s, according to board member Mary Helen Berlanga, a lawyer from Corpus Christi who opposed the new curriculum. When one working group drafted a section on how World War II created opportunities for women to be employed in all kinds of industries not open to them before, the section was taken out by the board majority. When that same working group wanted to include discussions on how sex and gender roles have changed over the decades, a conservative member said that would lead to teaching about “transvestites and all sorts of people with different sexual proclivities,” Berlanga says.

Like most people, upon learning about my foremothers, their struggles and their contributions, I feel empowered and less alone. It allows me to frame my life within the social, historical and political context of patriarchy.

As quoted in Brink’s piece:

“This is frightening. … It is history as seen through the eyes of Anglos,” says Berlanga, who stormed out of the last hours of the meeting, calling her colleagues’ actions an attempt to “whitewash” history. Earlier, Berlanga had made an impassioned appeal for the inclusion of the names of just one or two of the dozens of Tejanos who died at the Alamo alongside Davy Crockett and William Travis. She lost.

“I grew up not knowing that Tejanos (Mexicans who lived in Texas at the time of the revolution) died there,” she says. “There was nothing about them in our history books. I would have been so proud [as a child] to know that my people were heroes of the Alamo.”

To know our collective history and resonate with our group identity as members of minority groups continues to be a pivotal step in our personal and collective empowerment. With that said, it comes as no surprise that there are powerful groups operating to erase our historical presence.

It is this very calculated operation at omitting our voices and experiences that propels me to continue seeking out the names and stories of important women and men that have allowed me to enjoy the privileges that many take for granted and may be taken at anytime. To educate is to empower and that will never be a cliche.

Wendy sent this to me this afternoon:

The other day I got an e-mail message saying simply this: Rosa Parks
sat in 1955. Martin Luther King walked in 1963. Barack Obama ran in
2008. That our children might fly.

Thanks 😉

Los Angeles Times:

Barack Obama, the son of a father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, was elected the nation’s 44th president Tuesday, breaking the ultimate racial barrier to become the first African American to claim the country’s highest office.

A nation founded by slave owners and seared by civil war and generations of racial strife delivered a smashing electoral college victory to the 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, who forged a broad, multiracial, multiethnic coalition. His victory was a leap in the march toward equality: When Obama was born, people with his skin color could not even vote in parts of America, and many were killed for trying.

Slate:

“We have a righteous wind at our back,” Obama proclaimed in the closing days of the campaign. It turned out to be a gale-force wind. He won decisively with more than 350 electoral votes and 51 percent of the popular vote, the first time a Democrat has achieved a majority of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter and by the largest margin for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.* He won among whites and in working-class areas where there had once been concern about his ability to connect with voters. Obama won among women, who are 53 percent of the electorate, by 14 points. He inspired a host of new voters and young voters, who helped make him the first post-baby boomer president. They all call him Barack, and he responded by texting them on victory night: “All of this happened because of you. Thanks, Barack.”

New York Times:

With his history-making election behind him, Barack Obama was moving ahead with his transition on Wednesday as he prepared to confront the daunting challenges that he will have to face as president in just 76 days, amid two wars and the gravest economic crisis to afflict the country since the Great Depression.

Huffington Post:

Even if your candidate didn’t win tonight, you have reason to celebrate. We all do.

Ten months ago, when Obama won in Iowa, we had a glimpse of what was possible and what became real tonight. What I wrote then about one state is now true for the whole country:

Barack Obama’s impressive victory says a lot about America, and also about the current mindset of the American voter.

Because tonight voters decided that they didn’t want to look back. They wanted to step into the future — as if a country exhausted by the last seven-plus years wanted to recapture its youth.

And they turned out in unprecedented numbers today to make sure that no amount of scrubbed rolls, malfunctioning machines, endless lines, or polling places running out of ballots would block the way.

The history of America is studded with great breakthroughs — propelled by leaders such as Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Martin Luther King – followed by decades of consolidation and occasional regression.

The Bush years have clearly been in a period of regression. The repudiation of those years is now almost universal. Even conservatives are admitting it; over the course of today, I’ve received numerous emails from conservatives ending with some variation on “Go Obama!”

In America’s journey toward a more just and truly democratic society, tonight is another milestone. And not just because the son of a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas is now President-Elect. But also because tonight’s outcome is a declaration that we are once again a nation more driven by hope and promise than a nation driven by fear.

New York Times:

The election of Mr. Obama amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country.

But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago.

Huffington Post:

I love history and had often whined to myself that I wasn’t lucky enough to have lived during a more exciting age: I sometimes like to think that I could have been a Tuskegee Airman, Buffalo Soldier or beatnik. Instead, I grew up in an America that often felt like occupied territory. After freeing Europe from the Nazis in the Forties, and then blacks in the Sixties and women in the Seventies, politically, the next thirty-odd years have largely been a depressing, embarrassing, soul-grinding drag. Throughout those years it often felt like the Empire struck back and would never return this nation back to its people. So I escaped in my mind, consoling myself by writing about the Airmen and the Beats.

But last night history came to me.

I dreamt about Barack and Michelle Obama all night. I dreamt I was at the White House seated at the table with Michelle Obama sharing in the celebration. The evening felt electric and the gravity of the moment was not taken for granted.

Often, I wake after a particularly exciting dream with disappointment when I realize that, indeed, it is only a dream and that even continued sleep will not take me back to the relished moment of my dream state. But, this morning was unlike the countless other mornings that left my fulfilled dreams and aspirations in the memory of my slumber.

I woke up with the keen awareness that this day was marked by a significant change. I felt and continue to feel moved and inspired. The weight of the last 8 years, specifically the last few months, is noticeably lifted. I feel it in my bones, my heart and I hear it in the voices of my family, friends, students, radio commentators, international leaders and government officials in our own country that fought against Barack Obama.

Last night’s dream signifies the message of Obama’s campaign and the theme of last night’s speech: unity.  we CAN share and will share in this moment because it is our moment.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

This is your victory.

And I know you didn’t do this just to win an election. And I know you didn’t do it for me.

You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

My partner and our friends gathered together last night over a communal meal and we sat riveted for hours upon hours as the numbers rolled in. In a matter of a few short moments the number of electoral votes for Obama jumped from 220 to 297 and CNN announced Barack Obama as the 44th president elect of the United States.

It took a second for the impact of that statement to process. We stood up, we cheered, we embraced, we cried, we felt relief, we smiled, we felt our hearts open and we knew that this moment was a moment with enormous implications.

I was impressed with the authenticity of Senator McCain’s conciliatory speech. Even he could not deny the power of this defining moment in our nation’s history.

In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

I’ve always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Senator Obama believes that, too. But we both recognize that though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to visit — to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African American to the presidency of the United States. Let there be no reason now — (cheers, applause) — let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth. (Cheers, applause.)

Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer in my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day, though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.

Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain. These are difficult times for our country, and I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans — (applause) — I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences, and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

I felt particularly moved by my partner’s heartfelt and jubilant response to this victory. As a biracial man, he has experienced the cruelty and hatred that fear of difference has fueled. The future of our unborn son was clear in our view of the future as we watched the crowds cheer, tears stream down Jesse Jackson’s cheeks, flags and banners wave, and image after image of city after city across the nation pop on to the screen uniting us with other members of this nation and the global community. Moments like these are not trite or cliche. They are ripe and abundant. They are rare and precious. They remind us of our humanity, our collective spirit and our ability to unite and work together.

I appreciated Obama’s humble tone and his honesty.  I appreciated his message of unity and diversity.  I appreciated his emphasis on collective responsibility and the joint effort it will take to make change happen now that the opportunity for change has arrived. We have been divided for far too long and we have denied the power of community and solidarity.  The ethic of individualism and instant gratification that has been pervasive in recent history has not worked well for the majority of the nation’s citizens.

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

That collective spirit brought us to last night’s historical moment.  I have never seen the dedication and drive to create change from the ground up in the way I have over the last year.  My students have mobilized.  My friends have become active in campaigns across the country.  I have seen more and more people seek out information and become conscious. It is unlike anything I have ever seen.  The activism of my early adult years pales in comparison to what has been accomplished in these final months.

As I drove to work, I savored the moment. I replayed the messages and conversations I had with my parents, my lover, my friends, and my students.  I smiled. I think we can all feel the sea change that is beginning to occur.  As opposed to riding the high and letting it drop, I am putting these feelings on a slow simmer and I hope that everyone that is riding the crest will do the same.  This buzz can not wane for everything that can be accomplished to come to fruition.

As I listened to Bush on NPR, I was inspired further by the tone of his speech, similar to the tone of McCain’s speech last night.

Bush called Obama’s win an “impressive victory” and said it represented strides “toward a more perfect Union.” He said the choice of Obama was “a triumph of the American story, a testament to hard work, optimism and faith in the enduring promise of our nation.”

The defeated leader of his own party, John McCain, won accolades as well, but not nearly so glowing.

“The American people will always be grateful for the lifetime of service John McCain has devoted to this nation, and I know he’ll continue to make tremendous contributions to our country,” Bush said.

To a country with monumental civil rights battles in its past, Bush said: “All Americans can be proud of the history that was made yesterday.”

He recalled the millions of blacks who turned out to vote for one of their own, saying he realizes many never fully believed they would live to see this day. But he also hinted that he has personal feelings of high emotion at this moment, representing the end of a controversial eight years in the Oval Office during which he tried, but failed, to attract more blacks to his party.

“It will be a stirring sight to see President Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their beautiful girls step through the doors of the White House,” the president said. “I know millions of Americans will be overcome with pride at this inspiring moment that so many have waited so long.”

As I strode on to campus today wearing my ObamaMama shirt, I was moved by the sight of the campus population in celebration and the pride that last night’s victory has instilled in so many.

I feel hopeful and committed.  I think we all recognize this moment for what is is: a watershed in history and an opportunity.

As my friend, Theresa, said in her text message to me this morning, “My inner child wants to hug everyone.” I concur.