Greatness or BUST!

While eating pineapples and drinking white wine in the backyard we affectionately call, "Heaven," we had a roundtable. What's a roundtable? It's a conversation amongst friends that can go on for hours about any and every topic. Since I digressed let me get to the subject at hand. One hot topic is Barack Obama. We all chimed in about the importance of this black man as President of the United States. One of my friends commented how he set the standard of job etiquette as relation to your interaction with others at your job. One thing he said that he learned that he did not have to dignify everyone with a response especially since they obviously did not understand his job description. Another friend announced that Barack Obama's calm demeanor helped her remain calm in inflammatory incidents. This 'coolness' exemplified his self-confidence, his 'swag.'

As black professionals the racist system challenges us everyday. The system challenges us, but our own challenges us as well. A lot of times we feel that we have to either get mad or overcompensate. We can remain calm and understand what our job is. It is not to appease the system, but we need to get the job done. Sometimes we have to ignore the 'lesser' people and keep going. Other times we have to stand up with a calm demeanor to be heard. Barack Obama is our precedence. Obama is our standard. Anything less is not acceptable. We cannot believe in the 'talented tenth.' We have to believe that each person has something great within them (at times it's untapped). We are a great people that has sustained the onslaught of racism (from the Middle Passage, institutionalized slavery, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, Civil Rights movements and marches, segregation, Reaganomics, crack epidemic, Bloods vs. Crips to George W. Bush and his era). Understand that we are still here. We have our Black Shining Prince of our day. That was the name Ossie Davis called Malcolm X at his funeral. Barack Obama is the continuation of our struggle as black people (particularly as professionals).

While we continue to rise, we cannot forget that it's our own time to shine. Barack Obama has shown that despite insummountable odds we can overcome. When it does not look good, we can still have our dignity and respect. We has to lift our heads up high and announce, "I am. I am greatness personified." Since Barack Obama is the President of the United States anything less than greatness is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Greatness or BUST!