Obama wins: How do you explain this day to your children?

[morningpaper]

How are you explaining the news to your children?

Do you mention race and if so, how?

Am so pleased he got in, he makes such a refreshing change to who has gone before. agree with you entirely Beforesunrise, its not just because he is black, that is just part of it.

ByTheSea - back! Our family's multi-ethnic too (I'm black, DH is white) and I have to say that although I'm not American and have never wanted to be, I'm really that I couldn't be part of this historic event.

Congratulations!

interesting thread!

I said every President has been a white male and now there is a person of colour which is very hurrah. Now we are just waiting for a woman said I, then had to start going on about Thatcher, then I shut up. Except then came the question "why does it matter to us?" which took the rest of the school run home.

I have discussed this lots with my 10 yr old. I read him parts of Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech and he knows a fair bit about Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement.

He was very excited to hear the good news this am!

I was so moved by some of the footage on TV this morning - I was crying watching it at the gym!

A good day.

ds3 just took a look at Obama and said "Nah, I don't like him!" Oh, well.

Yup, he is the literal, physical embodiment of Martin Luther King's dream come true. He was judged not by the colour of his skin but by the content of his character.
That is HUGE.
There was millions of people voting who themselves remembered the days when dogs were set on black voters, when benches had 'whites only' written on them, and black people had to sit at the back of the bus. HOw amazing for them.

Chipmonkey - I love the ability of children to cut through the crap!

I am uninterested

does that make me a bad person?

he's just going to end up being the same old same old

don't really get the obsession with america tbh

I normally try to shield my kids from the news - it's seldom very uplifting and often anxiety-provoking, but I was so excited to tell them this morning that Obama had won and why it was such a great day.

They couldn't comprehend that black people might be treated differently just because of the colour of their skin and just kept saying 'people were horrible to them just because their skin is a different colour????'

I told my DS (4.9)that something very important and good has happened in the world today,to which he responded 'that's nice mummy, where's my transformers?'

Point is, I thought it was important enough to tell him, and he listened in his little way!!!

eniddo, it doesnt make you a bad person although i do feel a bit sorry for you that you dont share our feeling of exhultation and hope and empathy with the rest of the world.

your comment about same old same old is a bit narrow minded, don't know what your kids' ages are but i think this is the sort of thing that would be wonderful to discuss and debate with them, can't wait til mine are old enough to do so.

obsession with america is because a) where america leads, usually the rest of the world follows and b) because we ALL depend on America, economically (booms and busts start there), politically (they do after all have the power to bomb the world at will, a power they have exercised with largesse over the past 8 years- and the UK has followed them).

Why does everyone thing this elections was about his skin color? Surely he has other qualifications for which people voted.

As disappointed as I am about the outtcome, I thought his speech was lovely, esoecially when he said that McCain had sarifced in ways that most of us could never imagine. That was nice.

I did explain the election to DD when I left for work yesterday morning. I told her we were going to lose.

You know, I thought McCain's speech was terribly dignified. In true GOP spirit, he took responsibility. And he was very humble about the fact that he wouldn't have done anything differntly. This was the mark of an honorable man as it didn't take away from Obama's victory.

I liked the unifying speech.

But most of all, am so pleased it was a fair election....

Could someone explain to me (and I mean this quite seriously, I'm not being snippy) why Obama is always referred to as black when he is mixed race?

AN- I do agree with you and as i have said in an earlier post i think his coming from nowhere to take the presidency truly is a wonderful chapter of the American dream. regardless of his race, he got where he got to by working extrmely hard all his life and that has a lot of value in itself.

although it is historic that he is black- it would have been historic if Hillary had won too.

I had a lot of respect for McCain this morning, he conceded very graciously and responsibly. truly i think picking SP was his undoing, apart from everything else she totally overshadowed him as she drew so much attention to herself (for all the wrong reasons, but i think we've already had this debate!).

It was about far more than his skin colour. I never voted for Thatcher, despite being a lifelong feminist..but then she said, I think quite explicitly, that being a woman wasn't relevant to her success.

But part of Obama's victory is about his skin colour. About the fact of having a black person at the very top.

He's referred to as black because that is his skin colour. I'm referred to as white because that's my skin colour; ethnically, I - and my white daughters - are half Asian, and we tick (proudly) the 'mixed race' box for ethnicity, but we are not perceived as anything but white.

We purchase - albeit fraudulently - white privilege. Obama doesn't.

Ah mother inferor - my grandmother put me in my place when I said that I supported Hillary as a feminist..'

She said, 'shame on you. Being a feminist just means the ability to choose not based on sex...'

Shame that he has to be anything other than just a person, an individual.
Shame there has to be so much emphasis on his skin colour.
Shame that the OP thinks we need to explain his race to our children.

If you make it into an issue it becomes one.

I don't see a problem in supporting Hillary as a feminist, she is explicitly a feminist and so it would make sense to vote for her as a feminist. Margaret Thatcher was not a feminist. You don't automatically vote for a woman as a feminist, you might however vote for a feminist woman (or a pro-feminist man).

re. the mixed race issue.

My children are mixed race. Me white, DH black (afro caribbean).

They are mixed race and have always known they are mixed race. It is very importnat for me that they acknowledge both the 'white' and 'black' part of their heritage.

But for the purposes of this election Barrack Obama is black and that is the most improtnat thing. To think that in very recent history black people were so segrated in american society - and today he is president elect is amazing. Regardless of your political views this is a major social shift.

(by the way earthpixie - my mother has asked me exactly the saem question re. this election. She is very indignant at the thought that her grandchildren would not have their 'whiteness' acknowledged.)

We didn't make it into an issue. The issue is there. We're acknowledging his triumph - and equally importantly, the triumph of millions of voters who decided that a black man could be in charge. I imagine that it was quite a struggle for many of them - given the kind of assumptions about black people that pervaded the US until very recently.