Barack Obama Inaguration

Barack Obama Inaguration

As I watched our president, Barack Obama, slowly walk to be presented to the world as America’s 44th president I saw something most people wouldn’t want to see in the leader of a country; nervousness. Seeing the tension in his step made me laugh, but it also told me some important things. One is that he’s human just like everybody else. I also saw that Obama isn’t taking his position lightly. He realizes that he has a hug responsibility not only as our first African-American president, but as someone given the reigns of a country in great crisis. I’d be more worried if he didn’t look concerned.

At the beginning of President Obama’s Inaugural Address he says, “I stand here humbled by the task before us…”. The operative word in that quote is “us”. I was expecting him to say, “…task before me…”, but he said us. He’s letting you know right away that he can’t fix our country on his own. It has to be a collective effort of the American people to change our circumstances for the better.

The days of I can’t do this because I’m black, or whatever you see as your adversarial circumstances are gone. President Obama has shattered that crutching belief, and gave a reality to the age old notion that truly you can be whoever you want no matter who you are or where you come from. African-Americans have gone from slaves to holding the highest position of our government. That is a beautiful progression to see and testimony that our country is changing for the better. It’s no longer so much “you against the world”, but you against yourself.

They say to change the world (or in our case, the imminent disaster of our country) you first have to change yourself. For me, I’ll start that change within myself by utilizing the opportunities I have as an American to build myself up. In my community, I could help uplift my environment through volunteering. Our country was founded through fellowship of helping one another and that is how it will...

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