Why? Because President-elect Barack Obama told us that "change has come to America."
And surely it has. The American people have clearly articulated what they want from their Executive Branch.
But this afternoon, when I was driving through L.A.’s Crenshaw District and Leimert Park, I came down from that high.
I was on Rodeo Road (not to be confused with Rodeo Drive. L.A. locals will tell you the two are worlds apart) when I saw two LAPD vehicles descending on a street corner that I was quickly approaching.
The squad cars stopped, the car doors flew open and out jumped four, large white police officers. I couldn’t see why they were moving so rapidly.
Fearing that I might be driving into a hail of bullets, I slowed down as I got to the street corner.
The four officers were wrestling a man to the ground – a young, African American man wearing a white cap, a white t-shirt and light denim pants.
He was struggling with them a bit it seemed, but I couldn’t tell if he was resisting.
There was no judgment of the officers or the young man on my part. Who’s to say what was going on there? I was just driving by.
But the image stuck with me. Four white men dressed in dark blue suits. Extremely dark blue. Almost black. One black man in the middle wearing mostly white.
Aside from the color juxtaposition, the incident was sobering. I felt for my brother. He could have been wrong. He could have been right.
But I wished the young man were on his way home from school, or on his way home from work, or busy mowing the lawn for his grandmother. Just anything other than being wrestled to the ground by four police officers.
I felt as sad for him as I felt happy for President-elect Obama on election night. I hope you can understand that.
So, yes. Change has come to America. But real change will also take time.
