Barack and being adjective-free

In four short days, we will inaugurate our first black President. The first of a million firsts in this story, something to be very proud of.

Just a newly-lit spark in my father's eye, I was around when Kennedy was shot, when we lost Martin and said good-bye to Robert F. I studied the Camps, lived through the pangs of 70's youth and charted my course. Through sometimes-thwarted feminism, 80's BFH, college and work, I paddled my canoe. Nothing of great notoriety but mine nonetheless. Aging parents, more work and living my joy are where I find myself these days...not a bad place, simply more tracks in my own personal snow.

Through much of my early life, I was either described overtly or through inference as a "female" this or "female" that. ("She", always had a bit of a suspicious intonation. to it.) Over the decades, thankfully, that has waned but as I hear the barrage of news reports on the President-elect, I am reminded of what it was like to be identified first by a characteristic other than what you were so competently charged with doing.

We must acknowledge the special place that President-elect Obama's "firstness" holds for us. The adjectives of "black" or "female" or "gay" to initiate our processing of a person must in time, however, become extinct. The tedium of still using these words to describe or qualify leadership or goodness should be a red flag to us that we still have a long way to go. To put it simply, if we have to use "black" in our description of the President, "blackness" must still be unique and important to us. At this moment in time, it most certainly is. In the not-to-distant future, I'm hoping not.

When we no longer need those "special" adjectives to describe one another, we will have arrived. I hope someone on Tuesday makes this point. If not, not only will I be disappointed but also, it will make me miss Tim Russert all the more.