The Editor, Sir:

The run-up to the United States presidential elections is perhaps the most exciting and historic of world events in recent times. A black man and a woman are vying to stifle the staggering horrors of a history characterised by racism and sexism and emerge president of the most powerful nation on the planet.

However, rather than a Hillary Clinton as a female president, it is a Barack Obama as a black president in the 'White House' that might heal some gaping wounds of the past and signal new possibilities.

While as a woman, I am glad to see more of my kind sit at the helm and do serious work, as Michelle Bachelet of Chile and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia have been doing. Somehow, my black skin and the black memories of subjugation and brutality it carries hungers for history in some way to right its wrongs against my great grandmothers and grandfathers. This affects me more powerfully than my need for women to emerge from the shadows.

Not so atrocious

No, as second class as women were treated in the past and perhaps today in some circles, the treatment has never been quite as atrocious as that levied against blacks.

So for this black woman it seems that race triumphs over gender. I am indeed more excited to see a Barack Hussein Obama attain the presidency of the United States, in spite of that unfortunate middle name and his relative inexperience. The truth is, I'm not sure I or my fellow black people are emancipated enough to choose without yielding to the black bias. Indeed, a black man sitting atop the great big United States of America is nothing short of hypnotic. And incidentally, should Mr Obama become president, he would preside over mostly white folks and in a sense determine their destiny. Sounds awkwardly familiar.

Still, intelligence would urge us to try and figure out who is better suited for the job; better qualified. But intelligence seems overrated when healing for a people is within reach. Indeed, this could be the greatest reparation to blacks the world over. No handouts, no favours, just a tremendous lift in their self-esteem and the igniting of a belief that things can change.

S. HARRIS

Sugarbella78@yahoo.com

Red Hills Road

Kingston