The speech

I haven't posted much on Obama's acceptance speech, either here or at my companion blog. I imagine I'll have something to say soon. But here's a rather nice reflection from Princeton's Melissa Harris-Lacewell:

As I stood in a sea of black, brown and white faces I waved a flag for the first time in my life. And I really meant it. I felt truly patriotic. I felt keenly the DuBoisian double consciousness that is such an ordinary part of my life that I barely notice it. And then I felt the dualism close. I felt no distance at all between my blackness and my Americaness. It was an experience that I cannot describe. It is not one that I was seeking or that I even knew existed. But the moment I felt myself become a citizen a wept for the joy and exhilaration of it.