It would be a squint-eyed view to read in Obama’s victory just a historic moment for African-Americans in the United States of America (USA).
It should be granted that Obama’s entry through the front door of the White House rather than the back door, once reserved for black cleaners only, does mark a turning point in black history.
African-Americans have come a long way since the days of slavery, the civil rights movement and many other sacrifices they have had to make to claim their rightful place in Anglo-Saxon America as fellow citizens.
Obama’s victory is no longer, as Henry Louis Gates Jr. noted: ‘all those black collective dreams deferred’. It is as if hundreds of years of collective black yearnings and dreams have been answered.
But Obama also means a lot more than just a victory for black America. Read more