innauguration

Reflections from a 12 year old daughter

Meg’s daughter, Jie Wronski-Riley, shares her Inauguration Week impressions.

The Sun was rising, Bright and hopeful,
The people were gathering, light and soulful

As a country, as a nation we have risen to this occasion.

January 16, 2009

From Milwaukee to DC
I was traveling alone which basically meant that I was sat down in a chair and ignored for about two hours. When we finally boarded I was sitting next to a woman who liked solitare and we exchanged small talk. I’ve flown on a plane many times before but this was different from those times, everyone except the stiff-necked businessman used the name Obama in every other sentence and there was an aura of tingling exhilaration that couldn’t be forced down by any number of delays and missed flights. This was a sample of what was to come during my stay in Washington.

January 17, 2009

Shopping
Today we went to get Obama souvenirs. First we went to the “Official Obama Store.” As we entered the small street shop we were greeted by women, children and men milling around the little tables plucking buttons, pins, and stickers out of metal tubs.

Quilt Show
In the museum of D.C. there was a show of wall hanging quilts from all over the states and world . All of these quilts were inspired by the Obama campaign.

January 19, 2009

Kids Inaugural
My long time friends Lina and Renci have an aunt that was the main commissioner on the obama campaign in the whole state of Michigan. And this aunt just happened to have tickets to the Disney kids inaugural. She had an extra ticket and she insisted that she couldn’t just leave me behind so I went to this Disney concert at the verizon center. It was great! I really admired how all the free tickets went to military families, many whom had a parent overseas. I also liked how they incorporated the inauguration into a kid friendly place.

January 20, 2009

Inauguration
photo by Jie Wronski-Riley

The excitement in the crowd was in-comprehendible we rushed, well as fast as we could which is about as fast as a slug who pulled a muscle. There were long wide masses that muddled along buzzing energetically about where they were from what had brought them here and how long the line was. It was a very bleak, freezing, almost sunless day, this was the day that we had been waiting for. The day which to some was a miracle when Barack H. Obama became our president after 8 long years of the bush reign. We had high hopes and frost-bitten but elated spirits. While we were standing about people were hopping up and down, swaying from side to side, and watching the monitor intently. After about an hour of waiting the jumbo-tron switched from showing pictures of the momentous American flag and high and mighty capitol to the red carpet of the 56th presidential inauguration. There were the powerful house representatives, the mighty senators, the old but noble former presidents and the celebrities. The crowd played a game of guess that big shot and most of the time there was a cry of “An old guy in suit and wearing a tie!”. When the crowd recognized someone other than by the color of their neck garment it was soon accompanied by a unanimous wave of boos or a great mass of encouragement and cheering . Then following hours of waiting in these bone-chilling temperatures and huge face buffeting gusts of wind Barack Obama walks down to his family as rigid as I’ve ever seen him. The mobs go wild! While Joe Biden is sworn in as vice president I wonder aloud what an odd duo Biden and bush would be. Then Obama steps up and places his hand on the bible. Everything is focused on this inspiring man and the oath he is taking. Some of the tension is let out when the jumbo-tron is about ten words behind the speakers and a whole clog of tall people are right in your line of vision, people who have an uncanny knack to sway right when you try to see right and to swing left when you attempt to catch a glimpse left. “So help me god.” repeats Barack Obama, seconds later the picture of Barrack Obama moves his mouth saying “so help me god.” The applause was tremendous! It was like a booming waterfall rushing down and rolling long and deep. There was a small sense of relief, that this actually happened, that Barack Obama is really the president of the United States of America!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now this day we’ve renewed the pride and steadiness that America is famous for.

The time is Now For the Change We Seek Hope is in the air

For more photos of the Inauguration in DC, visit the Advocacy & Witness facebook page.

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Civil Rights, Economic and Racial Justice

Hold On to This Feeling

The first time that I visited Washington, DC, it was as a tourist. As I stood in awe of monuments and grand buildings, shuffled past the Declaration of Independence, and tried to take in all that the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian had to offer, I could not imagine that anyone actually lived in this city. To me as a tourist, Washington was like a marble theme park where presidents and Congress members made history of one kind or another.

A couple of months after I had moved to the neighborhood of Columbia Heights, I caught sight of the far off Washington monument down Meridian Hill and remembered how I once could not fathom being what I had become, a DC resident. I, like other staff members of the UUA’s Washington Office for Advocacy, live in DC. We go to work, go home, buy groceries, go to church, go out… and know a city that is not evident from vacation visits and media coverage. The Washington that tourists see is disproportionately white with a smattering of foreigners, and an emphasis on lawyers and the military, lobbyists and diplomats. The DC that I know as a resident is a mixture of ethnicities – Euro Americans, African Americans, Latino Americans, and others – living in neighborhoods of varying degrees of integration… policemen and nurses, shop keeps and community organizers. There are neighborhoods of extreme poverty and despair in the same city with the marble facades and luxury hotels. I live in the capital of what is still the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth and yet our school system fails its children, some neighborhoods are plagued with violence, our residents do not have true Congressional representation, and everywhere the divides created by both racism and classism are evident.

I do not mean to give the impression that everyone walks around distrusting each other. Far from it. But just like other large cities in the U.S., there are barriers in our daily lives that are perhaps more visible in DC because of the stark contrasts. But this week we watched those barriers tumble down. On Sunday, I attended the “We Are One” concert with Taquiena Boston and her sister Mishan. We met in the neighborhood of Adams Morgan for brunch and then walked down to the National Mall, an over two mile walk. Along the way, we joined hundreds of others walking there as well. And we smiled at each other and shared stories. At the concert itself, the crowd was even more diverse than the performers on stage. The spirit of unity continued through the weekend, culminating when two million people – from all over the nation including DC, from all walks of life – converged again on the National Mall. When Barack Hussein Obama completed the oath of office, people everywhere hugged the nearest person they could find, regardless of race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation…. We truly were one. This spirit of good will has continued long past that one moment. People greet each other with smiles at metro stops and chat while waiting in lines.

We live in an age where self-sufficiency is valued over cooperation. Where people intentionally avoid eye-contact when passing each other on busy city streets. Only twice in my life have I experienced the loving good will that is still embracing DC right now. The other time was in New York City after September 11th, 2001. While a lot of anger was unfairly directed at Muslims following the attack, there was also an encompassing feeling of intimcacy amongst usually gruff New Yorkers. People held doors open for each other, used their car horns less, and were generally more patient and kind. In our moment of collective grief, as a nation searched for meaning out of tragedy, we could have listened to the better angels of our nature, instead of the demons of fear and self-centeredness. People were ready to serve a higher purpose, if only we had had the leader to inspire us in that direction. Instead, our president at the time told us to “go shopping” and then took us into two wars.

The inauguration of President Obama cannot erase the harm we have done in the last seven years (and for hundreds of years before that). But at least now we have a chance. May we hold on to this feeling of unity in the trying times to come.

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UUA