Voting for President in 2008: The Path to American Equality

This time around, the presidential election faces more diversity than ever before, making history. The front runners for democratic nominee just happen to be a woman and a black man. The question arises are we ready for diversity in the oval office? While equality toward women is still debatable in this country, some statistics still claiming women are treated unfairly in the workplace, the law is in place to allow us all the same rights as men. It really wasn't all that long ago, women were considered second class citizens. Immediately, following the Civil War, notable women's right advocate, Susan B.Anthony, demanded the Fourteenth Amendment include women's voting rights. However, it wasn't until nineteen-nineteen, the nineteenth amendment included women's voting rights on a national level. So, we're talking roughly eighty-nine years since women first were permitted to vote. We've come a long way baby! It's looking as though
we're edging closer to our first female president. What would Susan B. Anthony say about Hillary Clinton leading the democratic party in 2008? I think she'd be relieved and proud.

It's no secret, the free nation wasn't always so free for everyone. You're not likely to get the truth regarding this matter from a text book. From an early age, American children are taught that our nation was founded on equality. No insult intended on the behalf of my own race, but it's a big white lie. The Constitution of the United States took effect in 1789. Slavery wasn't abolished until 1865 with the advent of the Thirteenth Amendment. Segregation wasn't ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court until 1954. Of course, the civil rights movement isn't over for those of us who think it's high time someone other than a white, middle aged man make their way into the white house. Up to this point, we've just been waiting on the right candidate. Now, that we have the right candidates, it's crucial American citizens vote for the person they truly believe in for president of the United States. Otherwise, history is doomed to repeat itself.

To me color of skin and sex are irrelevant either way, making a person neither competent or incompetent, placing the person neither worthy or unworthy of my vote. My choice isn't based on who tells me what I want to hear either. Believability is what matters to me. Anyone who doesn't believe a black man can be president is responsible for holding him back.

Barack Obama will continue to make history by uplifting the American people whether he wins or not . He will continue to speak out in the name of equality . The message sort of gets crossed with some people when they assume he is centered on the ideology of world peace. Obama is actually not all together opposed to war. Is he a peace activist? Certainly. However, he is more concerned with making sense of war rather than ending all wars.

Regardless of who wins the primary, I hope you all go out and vote for the person you believe in rather than for the person you believe can win. Only then have we achieved equality in this country. Amen.