Iraq. Afghanistan. Darfur. Tibet. North Korea. Georgia. Haiti. Colombia. Iran. Israel. Rwanda. America. America?

It’s two days before the 2008 presidential election. The Week in Review section of the Sunday Times screams about politics, about the breakthroughs our country has undergone in the last year, about our dire financial situation. Barack Obama and John McCain’s faces are super-imposed on a collage of snapshots from the last twelve months: Hillary Clinton, Jeremiah Wright, Sarah Palin, Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. When I read the articles, they question our future; whether or not the right candidate will be chosen, how we will cope with our countless problems, if the rest of the world will begin to respect our country again.

The nations listed above are those in which turmoil is prevalent, peace is unheard of. America? you ask. Yes, I say, after reading those articles. Yes, when a country that advocates freedom and rights for all still has citizens who say, “I will never vote for that man because he is black,” or, “We are not prepared to have a woman in so high an office.” I marvel at this absurdity. I read Joe Biden’s comments that Obama is “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean.” A quote by author Ta-Nehisi Coates, “I knew, for the first time in my life, that it would be a good year to be black.” I worry about voters going to the polls and changing their minds at the last second because of race, or gender.

America? you ask. America? Yes, because in a country where there is so much to gain, where discrimination still runs rampant, peace is not a reality.