Hard to Imagine.

Watching the inauguration of Barack Obama the other day I was touched by the faces of the black young people. What an amazing day for them…but do they even know what an amazing day it was?

Seeing a black man becoming the president of the United States opens up possibilities in their imagination of what is possible that has never before existed. The implication of it is profound.

Years ago in the late 1990’s, when the US Women’s soccer team rose to prominence, won Olympic gold and a World Cup, I was watching with my wife. She looked at me and said something that I will remember forever.

“This is the first time ever that I can imagine being a professional athlete.”

It was so jarring to me (a athletic kid who survived the torture of school by holding the dream of playing professional sports), that she had to further explain.

When we were growing up there were no female athletes who were prominent. I suppose there were some tennis players and Olympic athletes, but that did not do it for my wife. She never considered playing sports a possibility in her imagining of what was possible for her life.

Again, I need to re-iterate that this was a complete shock for me. It had always been a possibility for me – albeit a long shot. But, it was clearly a part of what I imagined as possible and it drove me to engage in my life in a really different way.

I did not feel powerful or important in the academic world, but this dream of being a athlete filled me with hope, with possibility, and kept my imagination working. Without this I would have been a lost, lost little boy.

I suspect that Tuesday, January 20, 2009 (along with November 4, 2008) will go down as a turning point in the lives of countless young black people. I do not know that the impact will be massively visible, mine was not, but it will open those doors to hope, possibility, and imagination.