Now.

One day you'll have to explain to your kids why yesterday mattered as much as it did. With time you may need to be reminded why even some Republican pundits got teary-eyed. It's much more than just white liberal guilt. That guilt has a source, and that source has to be remembered. Some of it still has yet to be addressed.

I found this clip online of Kenneth Clark interviewing James Baldwin some time in the 1960's. I think it provides an important perspective on what happened last night and why all those popping champagne bottles were absolutely justified. But it also provides some perspective on the daunting amount of work still to be done in the area of justice and equality with regards to all people. Baldwin fit into more than one disenfranchised demographic, and his words here on how to look at radical movements (specifically radical Islam, although not the kind we yap about these days) are just as relevant--and just as ignored--as they were then. It's a devastating and beautiful interview.

The Second Coming.

There's a pseudo-religious fervor that has gripped this election and it scares me a bit. The last eight years and the economic crisis have given much of the current discourse a certain tinge of the apocalyptic, so that we can cast our vote for assigning one man the the title of messiah. Looking forward to the moment when the the curtain goes up and the savior is exposed as a mere human, one must wonder what we have in store.