Healing Tears

Yesterday I was here at work, desperately trying to tune into streaming CNN coverage of the inauguration along with whatever I could get on my small, old black and white analog TV. That surely was the last time I'll use that television!

I got static, snow, stops & starts, and decided it was best to get to the nearest big screen TV on the University of Chicago campus. Fortunately the School of Social Service Administration had TWO huge TV screens in their lobby, so colleagues and I went over there to watch the swearing-in ceremony. In the sea of mostly white, middle-class faces there were a few African American folks glued to one screen or the other. There was not much talking, but there were tears here and there. Tears both of joy and healing: celebrating a new day while remembering the long, tortured, national pain that is racism. Not that the pain, the ugliness, the hatred, has gone away, but for once we can sigh with relief in knowing that America has made a huge leap forward in coming to terms with that awful legacy. And there will be much healing work ahead of us, not to mention reparations.