Our maid Doro, who's been a part of our family for more than thirty years (see my May 6 post, "Doro My Sister"), has brought her daughter to help with our home upstairs and studio down stairs, while JC and I are re-organizing our offices.
On a break, Doro (who's black) shocked me. She was touched, thrilled, and uplifted by the election, and much more hopeful about her personal future after the election. She isn't now.
(None of her seven children have soared, or really, truly escaped the second-class citizen attitudes of Harlem-born children of the fifties. I'm not into sociology, and I don't have the terms on the tip of my tongue. But I see that Doro's life, her children's lives, and their kids' lives as being stuck where too many blacks have been stuck -- because they haven't had the freedom, or education to dream big dreams and go for what us whites strive to attain.)
What's on my mind, what shocked me is what Doro said about Obama, as the four of us were taking a break. In an unfamiliar tone of voice, she sort of sing-songed her disappointment, her mistrust of the man whom she loved a few months ago.
Whoa .... is Doro being brain-washed by her employers? We got her a job with friends in Hartford who employ her as a full time maid. (She has extraordinary expertise in what she does). We assumed our educated, wealthy friends felt the way we feel about Obama, and are celebrating what he's already done, and what he's non-stop working to achieve for our country.
We feel our questions, our wondering, and personal concerns about health care and the national debt have to be put aside. We trust Obama and know that if mistakes are made, he'll rectify them. He's the guy we got to know, respect, and trust during the past two years of campaigning -- what he is, and what he says, and does, gives us hope and once again a sense of our America the beautiful.
As Doro's working, we've been reminding her that what she's hearing in Hartford and maybe even hearing from her family -- is fear.
We're singing our song, and my sister Doro and her daughter are -- yes, thank goodness -- singing along with us.
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1 comment:
Why does she distrust him? Did she say? Is it fear about health care reform or other things?
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