I suspect I'm not the only person feeling this way, but so far I seem to be the only person admitting it. (Which is why I've taken so long to get around to saying so.)

Like most folks, I did my fair share of choking up on inauguration day. I am moved by President Obama's eloquence, his charisma, his humility, and his message of hope and change. Intellectually I understand and appreciate the significance of a black man taking the oath of office. But I didn't feel the same sense of gravity and history that others did on Tuesday.

My best guess is that witnessing the culmination doesn't mean as much when you haven't also witnessed the battle for equality. Because even though I was once thrilled to shake Rosa Parks's hand, I am a white girl who's lived her entire life within an hour of the Canadian border, and my experience of the Civil Rights movement comes entirely from social studies textbooks. 

 For as long as I have been alive, African-Americans have been able to eat lunch and go to school where they please. As far back as my memory reaches (and further), black people have been able to vote. Unless you count the time Luphia Brooks clobbered a kid on the playground for calling her "Chocolate," I've observed virtually no racism first hand. I didn't even realize my elementary school was smack-dab in the middle of the black neighborhood until I was in junior high. In short, although it was never something I took for granted, the notion of a black man in the oval office never seemed impossible or outlandish to me. Maybe that's something to be proud of, but at the same time I can't help feeling a little left out of this year's inaugural glee. That got me thinking -- what might become an equivalent inaugural moment for people of my generation?

The nearest thing I can come up with is a gay president. A female president would be a milestone of course, but consider that we currently live in an era where allegations of homosexuality can ruin a politician's career. Can you even imagine what would have to change for that phenomenon to completely reverse itself, how many people will have to re-evaluate their values and beliefs? To someone who in elementary school was shocked by a classmate's suggestion to go "nigger-knocking" but had no qualms about proclaiming, "That's so gay!" the idea of this country knowingly electing a gay commander in chief does seem far-fetched -- perhaps as far-fetched as a black president seemed to my parents' generation. But then I look at President Obama, and I remember how once upon a time, the institutions of slavery and segregation were defended from the pulpit, and racism was government policy, and I think, well, maybe. Someday....