Last Word on the Inaugural

The combination of technical problems with the site and a near complete absence of downtime left my inaugural coverage sorely lacking. But here is an attempt to make amends or at least break it down such as it be permanently and forever broke. This is an email on the inaugural sent to me by an AE reader in Bessemer, Alabama — who also happens to be my mother:

I could hear the excitement in your voice, so glad you are having a successful trip. I watched some of the preparations going on in DC and was almost as tearful as I was on Nov.4 while trying to figure out why this happens, it dawned on me that perhaps it is because Obama validates what I felt as a teenager growing up in alabama.that i was as good as anybody else (whites) and i wasn’t a .stupid nigger or having to go to the back door of a store, or wait at the end of the line, and i shouldn’t have to say yessir/yesmam to a person even younger than myself just because they were white. When i drive past the library in Bessemer it still hurts that over 50years ago i could’nt go in and read a book. Thinking about these things made me realize how deeply racism really goes maybe there is no such thing as getting over that kind of pain. Perhaps that is why i and so many others of my generation cry when we see Obama he validates all of us. Maybe Obama’s intelligence, character, pride, confidence, and even the swagger in his walk proves that black does not mean stupid or inferior. In case you haven’t guessed, thats also one of the reasons I am so proud of you.   have a ball, love ma

don’t forget to take a photo of yourself if you can