I never really supported Obama. I more hated McCain and Palin. I am as liberal as they come, so it isn't that Obama is far away from my values.

I am isolated from people my age (I am under 30), my race (I am black), and other liberals. I saw the jubilation on the faces of black people on televisions, heard people cheering, and I just do not get it. I find the whole "Yes We Can," and vapid speeches about hope and change to be grating. I feel isolated because I am not jubilant. What's worse, I have people getting angry with me for not thinking this is the best thing ever.

I have said here before that Obama is not black the way I am. I see his election as more of a triumph for first generation immigrants and biracial people than a black person like me. My family were slaves on this soil, they lived through Jim Crow, went to segregated schools, and lived in fear of whites. My family is unwillingly in diaspora. Obama is post-diaspora. My family does not have an ancestral home in Africa. My family's ancestral home is a slave plantation. It would be more touching or moving to me if someone who is black the way I am had become president. I am not saying he is less black or whatnot, but it is different. The thing that illustrates this best is a t-shirt I saw. The shirt has a Confederate flag on it and it says "Made of 100% cotton and your grandmother picked it." Obama cannot have the subjugation and humiliation of his family thrown in his face.

I am heartened by the idea that Obama might appoint young, liberal judges to the appellate bench. I hope that he does not allow his desire to appear like a healer to undermine the effort to reverse what Bush did on that front. I am relieved that we may be able to protect Roe from conservatives.

Anyway, I do not know how to feel. I imagine that feel a milder version of what McCain supporters are feeling: alienation from the majority of the country. It is just that more worse because I am alienated from my age and racial cohort, friends, and family. Even Condi Rice, a Republican, feels good about this. I do not know how to respond to that. A Republican is happier about the election of a Democrat than I am?

I cannot comprehend the cult like devotion to this man. The weeping, fainting, mindless chanting of slogans, and rapture confounds me. I am unmoved by this whole hope theme. I find it annoying and think that people who latch on to it are immature. Maybe I should not say immature because it sounds judgmental, but I cannot find another word. I am not trying to be insulting. I find Obama's speeches to be empty rhetoric devoid of policy specifics. What is it that I am not hearing that other people are hearing?

I would like to hear from the rest of you on this. Are there any other liberals or Democrats out here who feel the way I do?

I think Obama walked right into the Atwater/Rove elitist trap by indelicately describing a sentiment that does exist in certain areas of the country. The rhetoric of the McCain/Palin rallies is one of bitterness and resentment. Atwater and Rove have been masterful at saying "look at those elites. They are godless, they want to take away your guns, they drink wine, read books, have fancy education, and they look down on you." This causes those people to then make themselves out to be morally superior to someone like me. Neither side does itself any favors by playing into those stereotypes. People buy into this manufactured social warfare and they do cling fast to their life style because they perceive themselves as being under attack. I can see how that would make people resistant to change.

While I think the use of words like "redneck" and "hillbilly" is offensive and wrong, I do not think one can dismiss out of hand the contention that there are still areas of this country where the population is racist, anti-intellectual, insulated from diversity, homophobic, and anti-Semitic. Why is it elitist to point out that there are areas of the country where a significant amount of the population is bigoted?

I do not believe in people going rural areas for the purposes of seeing "hillbillies" as if people in rural areas are some sort of curiosity. That is wrong. But how many people from small towns do you see hanging outside Rockefeller Center during the Today Show who come to New York to see the freak show they imagine takes place here? You know as well as I do that in the south and middle America, New York is known as a center of godlessness, immorality, "liberalism" (a slur), and values they deem as weird. That is moral elitism.