November 9, 2016 - 22:52
[as described by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, in her novel Americanah, 2013, pp. 360-361]:
It felt to her like a bereavement, that she could not vote. Her application for citizenship had been approved but the oath-taking was still weeks away.....
soon they were all seated, on the couch and the dining chairs, eyes on the television.....A graphic flashed on the television screen...and the living room became an altar of disbelieving joy.
Her phone beeped with a text from [her nephew] Dike.
I can't believe it. My president is black like me. She read the text a few times, her eyes filling with tears.
On television, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama and their two young daughters were walking onto a stage. They were carried by the wind, bathed in incandescent light, victorious and smiling.
“Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled, Americans have sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of red states and blues states. We have been and always will be the United States of America.”
Barack Obama’s voice rose and fell, his face solemn, and around him the large and resplendent crowd of the hopeful. Ifemelu watched, mesmerized. And there was, at that moment, nothing that was more beautiful to her than America.