Are you Ready for Change?...

In less than one month, voters will go to the polls to cast their vote for the next President of the United States of America. Over the past year plus...we have seen the candidates go back and forth, submit their ideas and plans for a better America and how they would conduct their administration if they were elected by the people. In looking at these two candidates, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, you find a tremendous difference in the character and history of these two and you see the obvious differences. In Sen. McCain is an older, white, upper class citizen and Sen. Obama is a younger, black, upper class citizen. These are the obvious and I am sure you are wondering what is the point I am trying to make. I am so glad you asked.....I will try to answer.

The not so obvious picture these two candidates represent is this....Sen. McCain is from an older generation of whites that have a certain and specific value system and tend to, by facts and history, not like change. He represents a class of Americans that are what we call..."Old School" and tend to follow the status quo. Sen. Obama represents a younger generation of Americans who like to challenge the status quo and he doesn't just represent the Black Americans some would expect. He represents an America that is pushing towards the future. Younger Americans that challenge and change the "same ol' " traditions that tend to get....well...old. Most of us don't like change but yet we know change is good and important. One of the things as a Christian that is greatly important is what the scripture says about change. In 2 Corinthians it states that "once you are in Christ, you are a new creation" meaning you have changed, it is required to walk with Christ. In America it is required to change to keep up, to stay in competition with the world and it is required to reflect the society that is being served. Sen. Obama represents a great shift in our Country that is taking place even now. Our country has been a "white majority" country since the beginning and the population shift has been taking place for years. In the next 15-20 years, the population will change and whites will not be the majority any longer. With this shift, it creates automatic change in our society and the needs of our country. Does this mean that we HAVE to elect Sen. Obama just because of our changing country...no, of course not. What it does mean is that it is required change that is going to happen sooner or later. We have a tendency to try and push things to the limit. For example, our economy. We ignored it until this point and it is harder now to fix then it would have been 6 years ago. Global Warming is an issue and if we keep ignoring it, it will become harder to fix and more costly. Electing Sen. Obama is another opportunity we have to get it right up front and not wait until it is more costly and a greater challenge in the future. The cost of not electing him is too great and the wonderful thing is it has nothing to do with his race and every thing to do with his policies and plans. So in this election, you have a win win situation. He represents the change we are all facing and supporters of McCain and the generations he represents are, in most ways, scared of that change. Scared of some thing new, scared of what they do not know. Media has done an amazing job and creating the perception that all blacks care about is sex, music, sports, and crime. They have been extremely successful in getting this image out there and creating the fear of an "angry black man" or black women. The sound bites and the pictures all paint a picture of trouble. The news reports daily of missing white children and the details of criminal activities of sports figures and musicians who happen to be all black in the news flashes. They exhaust money on endless stories of the abductions of white woman and children from across our country and parade the stories of O.J. Simpson, Michael Vick, the Janet Jackson Super Bowl "show" and many other stories like this. Poor white America and bad bad Black America. The media is so quick to call out a political figure or anyone for using the "race card" when the media has pulled that card and left it out in use for years. The latest is the V.P. Debate that took place last Thursday and wanting to ban the facilitator (an African America woman) because she has wrote a book about the historic events to include Sen. Obama's run for President saying she would be bias to the Democratic party in lieu of her book. If it was a white commentator, would this be a story? Does the movie out about President Bush influence our society to feel sorry for him and the party and submit a pity vote? Either way, it is up to America to sort through the rhetoric and see the truth. There is a change taking place in our Country and it is time to except that change. Do we follow our past and go against this change, continue to follow the status quo and avoid what we don't understand or know out of fear? Or do we embrace this change and except it and follow the flow of our country and where we are going. Do we elect someone who represents the future of our country and represent the generations that will carry us in to that great future. Where we are going in our future of change is far better than where we have been or where we are now. We are a country of people who believe in a greater purpose, a greater cause. We question the very foundation we stand on as a country, but those questions are not to knock our past, but to ensure the foundation we stand on will stand strong in our future of certain change and will carry us through the transition.

No matter who you vote for, please vote. Too many people have died as a price to gain the right we all have. Do not let their deaths be empty, rather a representation of the "change" that needed to and did take place. Change!!