I tuned in to the inauguration early and saw lots of "man on the street" interviews, on thing was said over and over.  "I never thought I would live to see this day." Or "I never thought this day would come."  By the context and intonation, I believe the people saying this were being literal.

That makes me sad and a little confused.

From my earliest memories of learning about politics I was told I or any of my friends could grow up to be president.  My parents considered the history of our government exceedingly important so by the time I was six I knew that the right to vote was a hard won right first for our nation to become a democracy at all, and then to apply our ideal that "all men are created equal"  ... and women too.  So as I flipped through the pages of "Mr. President" I understood that there were obstacles in the past which explained why everyone in the book was a white man.  Still knowing this did not shake my belief that when the people most liked the ideas of a black candidate or a female candidate (or Hispanic, or Asian, or blind, or non-christian, or any number of other possibilities) then that would be the time we would get such a person as president.  It makes me sad to think that others did not believe such a thing possible.

So my question is this, Is this disconnect because of my age, or where and how I was raised, or have a few rude people ground down the hopes of so many?

I could see this being a generational issue.  After all it wasn't until I was applying for college that I realized how recently colleges had limited opportunities for women.   I was shocked to discover that my Alma Matter hadn't had its first female student until the late 70's.  Only when I brought this up did I discover that my mom had truly wanted to attend law school at USC but was refuse because she was female.  So the past I once believed to be far distant, wasn't that long ago.  I can see how a person could still carry the scars of that not so distant past.  Still despite her own experience my mother saw how things had changed for women and raised me to believe I could be anything and do anything I set my mind to.  I would hope that my elders all would have seen how far this nation has come, and would raise their children with such faith in their own liberty and ability.

Perhaps it was just the result of living in a military town where we would say "If he outranks you, you had better salute even if he's purple!"  I and my friends made friends as we saw fit and no one treated the racial mix of our group as strange.  As far as I could see people treated everyone the same regardless of religion, ethnicity, or disability.  My parents associations were similar though perhaps more diverse in terms of wealth.  When my parents held a party no one seemed isolated or left out on account of anything other than being uninterested in talking.  The only variation I really noticed was a reluctance to mention a person's race when trying to identify which "Bill" someone was talking about.  I recall once performing this dance with a friend and us both felling silly and guilty when in a desperate attempt to make sure we were talking about the same girl one of us broke down and mentioned the friend we were describing was black.  We both felt rude mentioning it, yet we agreed that if she was blond or red headed we probably would have started the attempt to describe her right there.  Are my experiences with race that strange?  Do people react so differently to race in other parts of the country?

I am not completely out of touch, from time to time I see glimpses that perhaps other parts of the country aren't like this.  These mostly come from the media and I am hesitant to put too much faith in people who make their money by reporting 1.3 magnitude earthquakes and telling everyone that kids hang out in "clicks" (aka a fixed group of friends) and that this is somehow dangerous.  And I guess some parts of the country could be racist.  Still I don't see our country having enough bigots to stop a person getting elected.  I have seen people say horrible things as a way of trying to get attention, but I don't see it much.  Could reporting like that and occasional acts of rudeness make a person afraid that the world hates them for no other reason than the color of their skin? 

It is my sincere hope that this issue is generational.  Our generation was raise with Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech ringing in our minds.  That one day he hoped his children "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."  I hope when Obama looked out at our nation he saw our generation living that dream.  If he understood such a divergence to exist, it would add a reason why he engaged young voters so extensively in his campaign.  It might mean that the limits we see are, at times, self imposed and we can be free of them if we just recognize that nothing stands in our way.