Turn on the light!
The sun shone brighter this morning.
His was a hulking figure. Dark blue suit with smirk on a face that predicts bad intentions. A family that reminds me of The Godfather: A crime syndicate of men and women whose aims are not what I had hoped for in a president.
As of today, Jan. 20, 2021, at around noon, he’s no longer president of the United States. And as I take my daily walk in the morning I can swear the birds sound sweeter and happier, and the bay that surrounds me seems clearer; it’s like I can look forward with a semblance of hope. We have finally put four years of darkness behind us. Turn on the lights!
Joseph R. Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States today under the strangest of circumstances — fears of another uprising to go with the scourge of the Covid pandemic that has already taken the lives of more than 400,000 Americans. We witnessed the national mall in Washington, D.C. populated by more than 200,000 American flags and not people. Joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black and Asian woman to hold the second most powerful position in the U.S. government, Biden knows they must hit the ground running to plug the many holes leaking that have left the country unsafe, and less of what we strive for as a nation.
The few attending the inauguration on the West Front of the Capitol, the same U.S. Capitol that only two weeks prior had been attacked by an insurrectionist mob that killed five and later were told they were loved by that same hulking president, wore masks, a change from events held by the previous administration. And compared to the message of ‘American Carnage’ of four years ago, today we heard messages best summed up by a 22-year-old poet laureate by the name of Amanda Gorman, who described herself as a “skinny Black girl, descended from slaves and raised by a single mother,” who can dream of being president one day, “only to find herself reciting for one.” She inspired with her words and her youth:
When day comes, we ask ourselves:
Where can we find light
In this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea we must wade.
Speaking of unity, redemption and reconciliation, this young woman, who represents the best of us, added:
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow, we do it.
Somehow, we’ve weathered and witnessed
A nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
Declaring that “democracy has prevailed,” and using the word “unity” throughout as mantra, Biden declared that “We must end this uncivil war — red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal … We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts, if we show a little tolerance and humility, and if we’re willing to stand in the other person’s shoes, as my mom would say, just for a moment.”
The new president inherits a country that is deeply divided but one that must “come together to confront the coronavirus pandemic, economic troubles and the scourge of racism.”
Watch President Biden’s inauguration speech:
